No, but young exultant,
Free from care and crime,
The soulless selfish England
Of this later time:
No, but, faithful, noble,
Rising from her grave,
Flag of light and liberty,
For ever must you wave!
TO AN OLD FRIEND IN ENGLAND.
“esau.”
Was it for nothing in the years gone by,
O my love, O my friend,
You thrilled me with your noble words of faith?—
Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death!
Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die,
O my friend, O my love!
Was it for nothing in the dear dead years,
O my love, O my friend,
I kissed you when you wrung my heart from me,
And gave my stubborn hand where trust might be?
Yet then I smiled, and see, these bitter tears,
O my friend, O my love!
No bitter words to say to you have I,
O my love, O my friend!
That faith, that hope, that love was mine, not yours!
And yet that kiss, that clasp endures, endures.
I have no bitter words to say. Good-bye,
O my friend, O my love!
AT THE SEAMEN’S UNION. [84]
“the seamen and the miners.”
. . . One rises now and speaks: “The Cause is one—
Labour o’er all the earth! Shan’t we, then, share
With these, whose very flesh and blood’s our own,
All that we can of what we have and are?
“What is it that their work is in the earth,
Down in its depths, and ours is on the sea?
The fight they fight is ours; their worth our worth;
Their loss our loss. We help them! They are we!
“We help them!—Ay, and when our hour too breaks,
And on to every ship that ploughs the wave
We put our hand at last, our hand that takes
Its own, will they forget the help we gave?