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A Nation spoke to a Nation,[104]
As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine,[9]
Before a midnight breaks in storm,[vii]
Duly with knees that feign to quake,[123]
For things we never mention,[39]
God gave all men all earth to love,[81]
Her hand was still on her sword-hilt, the spur was still on her heel,[118]
In extended observation of the ways and works of man,[107]
Now the Four-way Lodge is opened, now the Hunting Winds are loose,[44]
Oh glorious are the guarded heights,[70]
Oh Hubshee, carry your shoes in your hand and bow your head on your breast![113]
Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way,[90]
Said England unto Pharaoh, ‘I must make a man of you,’[98]
Take up the White Man’s burden,[94]
The God of Fair Beginnings,[32]
‘There’s no sense in going further—it’s the edge of cultivation,’[61]
The strength of twice three thousand horse,[13]
They christened my brother of old,[4]
This is our lot if we live so long and labour unto the end,[57]
We have no heart for the fishing, we have no hand for the oar,[26]
We’ve sent our little Cupids all ashore,[23]
When I was a King and a Mason—a Master proven and skilled,[78]
When that great Kings return to clay,[74]
When the darkened Fifties dip to the North,[87]
Where run your colts at pasture,[18]
Who hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded,[1]
With those that bred, with those that loosed the strife,[77]
Yearly, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go,[51]

THE SEA AND THE HILLS

Who hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded—
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing—
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing—
His Sea in no showing the same—his Sea and the same ’neath each showing—
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills!

Who hath desired the Sea?—the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bowsprit emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, and the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder—
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail’s low-volleying thunder—
His Sea in no wonder the same—his Sea and the same through each wonder:
His Sea as she rages or stills?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies,
The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses?
The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that declare it;
White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it;
His Sea as his fathers have dared—his Sea as his children shall dare it—
His Sea as she serves him or kills?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather
Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather
Inland, among dust, under trees—inland where the slayer may slay him—
Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him—
His Sea at the first that betrayed—at the last that shall never betray him—
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.

THE BELL BUOY

They christened my brother of old—
And a saintly name he bears—
They gave him his place to hold
At the head of the belfry-stairs,
Where the minster-towers stand
And the breeding kestrels cry.
Would I change with my brother a league inland?
(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I!