WATERLOO DAY
[June 18]
This is the day of our glory; this is our day to weep.
Under her dusty laurels England stirs in her sleep;
Dreams of her days of honour, terrible days that are dead,
Days of the making of story, days when the sword was red,
When all her fate and her future hung on the naked blade,
When by the sword of her children her place in the world was made,
When Honour sounded the trumpet and Valour leapt to obey,
And Heroes bought us the Empire that statesmen would sell to-day.
England, wanton and weary, sunk in a slothful ease,
Has slain in her wars her thousands, but her tens of thousands in peace:
And the cowards grieve for her glory; their glory is in their shame;
They are glad of the moth in her banners, and the rust on her shining name.
Oh, if the gods would send us a balm for our sick, sad years,
Let them send us a sight of the scarlet, and the sound of the guns in our ears!
For valour and faith and honour—these grow where the red flower grows,
And the leaves for the Nation’s healing must spring from the blood of her foes.
A SONG OF PEACE AND HONOUR
[December, 1895]
TO THE QUEEN
Lady and Queen, for whom our laurels twine,
Upon whose head the glories of our land
In one immortal diadem are met,
Embodied England, in whose woman-hand
The sceptre of Imperial sway is set,
Receive this song of mine!
For you are England, and her bays grow green
To deck your brow, your goodness lends her grace,
And in our hearts your face is as Her face;
The Mother-Country is the Mother-Queen.
* * * * * *
We, men of England, children of her might,
With all our Mother’s record-roll of glory,
Great with her greatness, noble by her name,
Drank with our mothers’ milk our Mother’s story,
And in our veins the splendour of her fame
Made strong our blood and bright;
And to her absent sons her name has been
Familiar music heard in distant lands,
Heart of our heart and sinews of our hands,
England, our Mother, our Mistress and our Queen!
Out of the thunderous echoes of the past
Through the gold-dust of centuries we hear
Her voice, “O children of a royal line,
Sons of her heart, whom England holdeth dear,
Mine was the Past—make ye the future mine
All glorious to the last!”
And, as we hear her, cowards grow to men,
And men to heroes, and the voice of fear
Is as a whisper in a deaf man’s ear,
And the dead past is quick in us again.