Fight, since thou must; strike quick and fierce,
So when this tyrant for too long
Hath shook the blood out of his ears
He may have learned the price of wrong.
Let him learn this, that the due grief
Of his own vice he cannot ban
By outrage of a highway thief;
Let him remember the Corsican,
Whom England only durst not dread
By sea or shore, but faced alone,
Nor stayed for pity of her dead
Until the despot's day was done.
Strike, England, quickly, make an end
Of him who seeks a deal with thee.
If he would bargain for thy friend,
What would he trade for Liberty?
MAURICE HEWLETT
THE FOURTH OF AUGUST
Now in thy splendour go before us,
Spirit of England, ardent-eyed!
Enkindle this dear earth that bore us,
In the hour of peril purified.
The cares we hugged drop out of vision,
Our hearts with deeper thoughts dilate.
We step from days of sour division
Into the grandeur of our fate.
For us the glorious dead have striven;
They battled that we might be free.
We to that living cause are given,
We arm for men that are to be.
Among the nations nobliest chartered,
England recalls her heritage.
With her is that which is not bartered,
Which force can neither quell nor cage.
For her immortal stars are burning,
With her, the hope that's never done,
The seed that's in the Spring's returning,
The very flower that seeks the sun.
We fight the fraud that feeds desire on
Lies, in a lust to enslave or kill,
The barren creed of blood and iron,
Vampire of Europe's wasted will.
Endure, O Earth! and thou, awaken,
Purged by this dreadful winnowing-fan,
O wronged, untameable, unshaken
Soul of divinely suffering man!
LAURENCE BINYON