We come from tower and grange,
Where the grey woodlands range,
Folding chivalric halls in ancient ease;
From Erin’s rain-wet rocks,
Or where the ocean-shocks
Thunder between the glimmering Hebrides;
And many-spired cities grave,
With terraced riverain hoar lapped by the storied wave.
Taught in proud England’s school,
Her honour’s knightly rule,
To do and dare and bear and not to lie,
With priest’s or scholar’s lore
Or statesman’s subtle store
Of garnered wisdom, proved in councils high,
We serve her bidding here, or far
Shepherd the imperial flock under an alien star.
Leechcraft of heaven or earth
We bear to scanted hearth
And lightless doorway and dim beds of pain:
With master-craft we steer
Dusk labour’s march, and cheer
His blind innumerable-handed train;
Or in the cannon-shaken air
Frankly the gentle die that simple men may dare.
The Asian moonbeams fall
O’er our boys’ graves, and all
The o’er-watching hills are names of their young glory:
Sleep the blithe swordsman hands
Beside red Ethiop sands,
Or drear uprise of wintry promontory:
The headstone of a hero slain
Charms for his Empress-Isle each threshold of her reign.
O for the blood that fell
So gladly given and well,
O for all spirits that lived for England’s honour,
Ere folly ruin or fear
Her whom these held so dear,
Ere fate or treason shame the crown upon her,
Rise, brothers of her knightly roll,
Close fast our order’s ranks and guard great England whole!
John Huntley Skrine.