—Alfred Noyes.
That we shall prove worthy among the nations it is almost impossible to doubt. With such leaders how could a people fail?
With an Empire on which the sun never sets, and which has given men, gold and even food to the Mother Country with a lavish hand, will not her rich merchants as well as her poorer sons of the Mother Country make as great sacrifices and show as much heroism as the sons of France, of Russia and Belgium?
We cannot doubt it. Though, after three months of the bloodiest warfare the world has ever seen, several million young Englishmen were still listening unmoved to the Drums of Drake—to the call of England, their England, for men to defend her in her hour of danger yet we know that, though slow to understand and hard to move, Englishmen, once they have understood and once they have been moved, will be true to themselves, their inheritance and their beloved little island. With Henley they will cry with one voice and one soul:
“England, My England—
Take and break us: we are yours,
England my own!
Life is good, and joy runs high
Between English earth and sky: