And so we will sing

Of the hempen string

And the land where the cord was wove.

What of the shaft?

The shaft was cut in England:

A long shaft, a strong shaft,
Barbed and trim and true;

So we'll drink all together

To the gray goose-feather
And the land where the gray goose flew.

What of the mark?

Ah, seek it not in England:

A bold mark, our old mark,

Is waiting over-sea.

When the strings harp in chorus,

And the lion flag is o'er us,

It is there that our mark will be.

What of the men?

The men were bred in England:
The bowmen-the yeomen,

The lads of dale and fell.

Here's to you-and to you!

To the hearts that are true

And the land where the true hearts dwell.
Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-

AN ENGLISH MOTHER

EVERY week of every season out of English ports go forth, White of sail or white of trail, East, or West, or South, or

North,

Scattering like a flight of pigeons, half a hundred home-sick

ships,

Bearing half a thousand striplings—each with kisses on his

lips

Of some silent mother, fearful lest she show herself too fond, Giving him to bush or desert as one pays a sacred bond,

---Tell us, you who hide your heartbreak, which is sadder,

when all's done,

To repine, an English mother, or to roam, an English son?

You who shared your babe's first sorrow when his cheek no longer pressed

On the perfect, snow-and-roseleaf beauty of your motherbreast,

In the rigor of his nurture was your woman's mercy mute, Knowing he was doomed to exile with the savage and the brute?

you

Did school yourself to absence all his adolescent years, That, though you be torn with parting, he should never see the tears?

Now his ship has left the offing for the many-mouthed

sea,

This your guerdon, empty heart, by empty bed to bend the knee!

And if he be but the latest thus to leave your dwindling board,

Is a sorrow less for being added to a sorrow's hoard?

Is the mother-pain the duller that to-day his brothers stand,

Facing ambuscades of Congo or alarms of Zululand?

Toil, where blizzards drift the snow like smoke across the plains of death?

Faint, where tropic fens at morning steam with fever-laden breath?

Die, that in some distant river's veins the English blood may

run

Mississippi, Yangtze, Ganges, Nile, Mackenzie, Amazon?

Ah! you still must wait and suffer in a solitude untold
While your sisters of the nations call you passive, call

cold

you

Still must scan the news of sailings, breathless search the

slow gazette,

Find the dreadful name and, later, get his blithe farewell! And yet

Shall the lonely at the hearthstone shame the legions who have died

Grudging not the price their country pays for progress and for pride?

-Nay; but, England, do not ask us thus to emulate your

scars

Until women's tears are reckoned in the budgets of your

wars.

Robert Underwood Johnson [1853

AVE IMPERATRIX!

SET in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,

And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war,

The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires which are
The torches of the lords of Night.

The yellow leopards, strained and lean,
The treacherous Russian knows so well,
With gaping blackened jaws are seen

To leap through hail of screaming shell.

The strong sea-lion of England's wars
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,
To battle with the storm that mars
The star of England's chivalry.

The brazen-throated clarion blows
Across the Pathan's reedy fen,
And the high steeps of Indian snows

Shake to the tread of armèd men.

And many an Afghan chief, who lies

Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, Clutches his sword in fierce surmise

When on the mountain-side he sees

The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes
To tell how he hath heard afar
The measured roll of English drums
Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

For southern wind and east wind meet
Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire,

England with bare and bloody feet

Climbs the steep road of wide empire.

O lonely Himalayan height,

Gray pillar of the Indian sky,

Where saw'st thou last in clanging fight
Our winged dogs of Victory?

The almond groves of Samarcand,
Bokhara, where red lilies blow,
And Oxus, by whose yellow sand

The grave white-turbaned merchants go;

And on from thence to Ispahan,
The gilded garden of the sun,
Whence the long dusty caravan
Brings cedar and vermilion;

And that dread city of Cabul

Set at the mountain's scarpèd feet,

Whose marble tanks are ever full

With water for the noonday heat;

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar

A little maid Circassian

Is led, a present from the Czar

Unto some old and bearded Khan,

Here have our wild war-eagles flown,
And flapped wide wings in fiery fight;
But the sad dove, that sits alone

In England she hath no delight.

In vain the laughing girl will lean
To greet her love with love-lit eyes:
Down in some treacherous black ravine,
Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.

And many a moon and sun will see
The lingering wistful children wait
To climb upon their father's knee;

And in each house made desolate,

Pale women who have lost their lord
Will kiss the relics of the slain-
Some tarnished epaulette,--some sword-
Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.

For not in quiet English fields

Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, Where we might deck their broken shields With all the flowers the dead love best.

For some are by the Delhi walls,
And many in the Afghan land,
And many where the Ganges falls

Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

And some in Russian waters lie,

And others in the seas which are

The portals to the East, or by

The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.

O wandering graves! O restless sleep!
O silence of the sunless day!

O still ravine! O stormy deep!

Give up your prey! Give up your prey!