'With a hero at head, and a nation

Well gagged and well drilled and well cowed,

And a gospel of war and damnation,

Has not empire a right to be proud?

Fools prattle and tattle

Of freedom, reason, right,

The beauty of duty,

The loveliness of light.

'But we know, we believe it, we see it,

Force only has power upon earth.'

So be it! and ever so be it

For souls that are bestial by birth !

Let Prussian with Russian

Exchange the kiss of slaves :

But sea-folk are free folk

By grace of winds and waves.

Has the past from the sepulchres beckoned?

Let answer from Englishmen be—

No man shall be lord of us reckoned

Who is baser, not better, than we.

No coward, empowered

To soil a brave man's name :

For shame's sake and fame's sake,

Enough of fame and shame.

Fame needs not the golden addition;

Shame bears it abroad as a brand.

Let the deed, and no more the tradition,

Speak out and be heard through the land.

Pride, rootless and fruitless,

No longer takes and gives:

But surer and purer

The soul of England lives.

He is master and lord of his brothers

Who is worthier and wiser than they.

Him only, him surely, shall others,

Else equal, observe and obey.

Truth, flawless and awless,

Do falsehood what it can,

Makes royal the loyal

And simple heart of man.

Who are these, then, that England should hearken, Who rage and wax wroth and grow pale

If she turn from the sunsets that darken

And her ship for the morning set sail?

Let strangers fear dangers :

All know, that hold her dear,

Dishonour upon her

Can only fall through fear.

Men, born of the landsmen and seamen

Who served her with souls and with swords,

She bids you be brothers, and free men,

And lordless, and fearless of lords.

She cares not, she dares not

Care now for gold or steel:

Light lead her, truth speed her,

God save the Commonweal!

A WORD FOR THE NATION.

I.

A WORD across the water

Against our ears is borne,

Of threatenings and of slaughter,

Of rage and spite and scorn :

We have not, alack, an ally to befriend us,

And the season is ripe to extirpate and end us :

Let the German touch hands with the Gaul,

And the fortress of England must fall ;

And the sea shall be swept of her seamen,

And the waters they ruled be their graves,

And Dutchmen and Frenchmen be free men,

And Englishmen slaves.