Sir Henry John Newbolt

“ Aloft, aloft with studding sails, and lash them on the yard,
For night and day the Trades are driving blind!"
So all day long and all day long behind the fleet we crept,
And how we fretted none but Nelson guessed;
But every night the Old Superb she sailed when others slept,
Till we ran the French to earth with all the rest!
Oh, 'twas Westward ho! for Trinidad and Eastward ho! for Spain,
And "Ship ahoy!" a hundred times a day;
Round the world if need be, and round the world again,
With a lame duck lagging all the way! ”

“ To watch the soul of man in his dark hour
Redeeming yet his dear lost land of home.
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What place is this? What under-world of pain
All shadow-barred with glare of swinging fires?
What writhing phantoms of the newly slain?
What cries? What thirst consuming all desires?
This is the field of battle: not for life,
Not for the deeper life that dwells in love,
Not for the savour of strife
Or the far call of fame,
Not for all these the fight: all these above
The soul of this man cherished Duty's name. ”

“ So in the death-dawn faded the splendour and loud
renown of warfare,
And life of all its longings kept but one.
"Oh! to be there for an hour when the shade draws in
beside the hedgerows,
And falling apples wake the drowsy noon:
Oh! for the hour when the elms grow sombre and
human in the twilight,
And gardens dream beneath the rising moon.
"Only to look once more on the land of the memories of childhood,
Forgetting weary winds and barren foam:
Only to bid farewell to the combe and the orchard and
the moorland,
And sleep at last among the fields of home!" ”

“ They weighed not help or hindrance, they did the thing they dared.
"The Sea-kings loved not boasting, they cursed not him that cursed,
They honoured all men duly, and him that faced them, first;
They strove and knew not hatred, they smote and toiled to save,
They tended whom they vanquished, they praised the fallen brave.
"Their fame's on Torres Vedras, their fame's on Vigo Bar,
Far-flashed to Cape St. Vincent it burns from Trafalgar;
Mark as ye go the beacons that woke the world with light
When down their ancient highway your fathers passed to fight." ”

“ OF A BALLAD SUNG BY H. PLUNKET GREENE TO HIS OLD SCHOOL Twice three hundred boys were we,
Long ago, long ago,
Where the Downs look out to the Severn Sea.
Clifton for aye!
We held by the game and hailed the team,
For many could play where few could dream.
City of Song shall stand alway.
Some were for profit and some for pride,
Long ago, long ago,
Some for the flag they lived and died.
Clifton for aye!
The work of the world must still be done,
And minds are many though truth be one. ”

“ It lay like a sea-hawk's eyry spoiled of life and hope.
Beyond, where dawn was a glittering carpet, rolled
From sky to shore on level and endless seas,
Hardly their eyes discerned in a dazzle of gold
That here in fifties, yonder in twos and threes,
The ships they sought, like a swarm of drowning bees
By a wanton gust on the pool of a mill-dam hurled,
Floated forsaken of life-giving tide and breeze,
Their oars broken, their sails for ever furled,
For ever deserted the bulwarks that guarded the wealth
of the world. ”

“ Princes have held divine,
Will they not bow before the eternal flame?
Vain! vain! the wind of heaven for ages long
Hath whispered manhood, "Let thine arm be strong!
Hew down and fling away
The growth that veils decay,
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Shatter the shrine that chokes the living spring.
Scorn hatred, scorn regret,
Dig deep and deeper yet,
Leave not the quest for word of saint or king.
"Dig deeper yet! though the world brand thee now,
The faithful labour of an impious brow
May for thy race redeem
The source of that lost stream
Once given the thirst of all the earth to slake. ”

“ Keep, they say, a magic chime
Rolling up from far below
When the moon-led waters flow.
So within me, ocean deep,
Lies a sunken world asleep.
Lest its bells forget to ring,
Memory! set the tide a-swing!
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Fond Counsel
O youth, beside thy silver-springing fountain,
In sight and hearing of thy father's cot,
These and the morning woods, the lonely mountain,
These are thy peace, although thou know'st it not.
Wander not yet where noon's unpitying glare
Beats down the toilers in the city bare;
Forsake not yet, not yet, the homely plot,
O Youth, beside thy silver-springing fountain. ”

“ O King of men that die, though we must fail
Thy life is breathed from thy triumphant sea.
O man that servest men by right of birth,
Our hearts' content thy heart shall also keep,
Thou too with us shalt one day lay thee down
In our dear native earth,
Full sure the King of England, while we sleep,
For ever rides abroad through London town.
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The Nile
Out of the unknown South,
Through the dark lands of drouth,
Far wanders ancient Nile in slumber gliding:
Clear-mirrored in his dream
The deeds that haunt his stream
Flash out and fade like stars in midnight sliding. ”

“ Had these no fame that by thy shore might linger?
Nay, then must all be lost indeed,
Lost too the swift pursuing might
That cleft with passionate speed
Aboukir's tranquil night,
And shattered in mid-swoop the great world-eagle's flight.
Yet have there been on earth
Spirits of starry birth,
Whose splendour rushed to no eternal setting:
They over all endure,
Their course through all is sure,
The dark world's light is still of their begetting. ”

“ A great sad voice and deep—
"When all your gold is reckoned,
There is but this to keep:
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To stay the foe from fooling,
To learn the heathen schooling,
To live and die sea-ruling,
And home at last to sleep."
But the third matched in beauty
The dawn that flushed afar;
"O sons of England, Duty
Is England's morning star:
Then Fame's eternal splendour
Be theirs who well defend her,
And theirs who fain would bend her
The night of Trafalgar!" ”

“ THE POET A thousand ages have not made less bright
The stars that in this fountain shine to-night:
Your eyes in shadow still betray the gleam
That every son of man desires in dream.
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THE LADY Yes, hearts will burn when all the stars are cold;
And Beauty lingers—but her tale is told:
Mankind has left her for a game of toys,
And fleets the golden hour with speed and noise.
THE POET Think you the human heart no longer feels
Because it loves the swift delight of wheels? ”

“ But the round world shall ring of it
And all we are be theirs.
To speak of Fame a venture is,
There's little here can bide,
But we may face the centuries,
And dare the deepening tide:
For though the dust that's part of us
To dust again be gone,
Yet here shall beat the heart of us—
The School we handed on! ”

“ The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,
The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between
His own name over all.
He saw the dark wainscot and timbered roof,
The long tables, and the faces merry and keen;
The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof,
The Dons on the daïs serene.
He watched the liner's stem ploughing the foam,
He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw;
He heard her passengers' voices talking of home,
He saw the flag she flew.
And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet,
And strode to his ruined camp below the wood ”

“ England! to-day let fire be in thine eyes
And in thy heart the throb of leaping guns;
Crown in thy streets the deed that never dies,
And tell their fathers' fame to all thy sons!
Behold! behold! on that unchanging sea
Where day behind Trafalgar rises pale,
How dread the storm to be
Drifts up with ominous breath
Cloud after towering cloud of billowy sail
Full charged with thunder and the bolts of death. ”

“ While the songman, far beneath the forest
Sang of Srahmandazi all night through,
"Lovely be thy name, O Land of shadows,
Land of meeting, Land of all the true!"
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Outward Bound
Dear Earth, near Earth, the clay that made us men,
The land we sowed,
The hearth that glowed—
O Mother, must we bid farewell to thee?
Fast dawns the last dawn, and what shall comfort then
The lonely hearts that roam the outer sea? ”

“ To see life bodily and see it brave.
With voice so genial and so long of reach
To your Own People you the Law could preach,
And even now and then without offence
To Lesser Breeds expose their lack of sense.
Return, return! and let us hear again
The ringing engines and the deep-sea rain,
The roaring chanty of the shore-wind's verse,
Too bluff to bicker and too strong to curse.
Let us again with hearts serene behold
The coastwise beacons that we knew of old;
So shall you guide us when the stars are veiled,
And stand among the Lights that never Failed.
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Le Byron de Nos Jours ”

“ Our labour on the earth is hope redeeming fear,
In sorrow we build for the days we shall not see.
Boys.
Great is the name
Of the strong and skilled,
Lasting the fame
Of them that build:
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The tongues of many nations
Shall speak of our praise,
And far generations
Be glad for our days.
Men.
We are sojourners here as all our fathers were,
As all our children shall be, forgetting and forgot:
The fame of man is a murmur that passeth on the air,
We perish indeed if Thou remember not. ”

“ Honour be yours and fame!
And honour, as long as waves shall break,
To Nelson's peerless name!
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San Stefano
(A BALLAD OF THE BOLD MENELAUS) It was morning at St. Helen's, in the great and gallant days,
And the sea beneath the sun glittered wide,
When the frigate set her courses, all a-shimmer in the haze,
And she hauled her cable home and took the tide.
She'd a right fighting company, three hundred men and more,
Nine and forty guns in tackle running free;
And they cheered her from the shore for her colours at the fore,
When the bold Menelaus put to sea. ”

“ What Devon hath kept
Devon shall keep on tide or main;
Call to the storm and drive them flying,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!"
Valour of England gaunt and whitening,
Far in a South land brought to bay,
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Locked in a death-grip all day tightening,
Waited the end in twilight gray.
Battle and storm and the sea-dog's way
Drake from his long rest turned again,
Victory lit thy steel with lightning,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!
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The Volunteer
"He leapt to arms unbidden,
Unneeded, over-bold;
His face by earth is hidden,
His heart in earth is cold. ”

“ Burns in our blood like ever-smouldering flame,
Whose Titan shoulders as the world are wide
And her great pulses like the Ocean tide,
Lives but to bear the hopes we shall not see—
Dear mortal Mother of the race to be. ”

“ The sea-born flush of morning,
The sea-born hush of night,
The East wind comfort scorning,
And the North wind driving right:
The world for gain and giving,
The game for man and boy,
The life that joys in living,
The faith that lives in joy. ”

“ O Lord our God, we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
O Lord God of our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of Thy people, and prepare their heart unto Thee. ”

“ His age from fame and power was far;
But his heart was high to the end, and dreamed
Of the sound and splendour of England's war.
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The Non-Combatant
Among a race high-handed, strong of heart,
Sea-rovers, conquerors, builders in the waste,
He had his birth; a nature too complete,
Eager and doubtful, no man's soldier sworn
And no man's chosen captain ”

“ Pray that God defend the Right.
So shalt thou when morning comes
Rise to conquer or to fall,
Joyful hear the rolling drums,
Joyful hear the trumpets call.
Then let Memory tell thy heart;
"England! what thou wert, thou art!"
Gird thee with thine ancient might,
Forth! and God defend the Right!
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The Sailing of the Long-ships
(OCTOBER, 1899) They saw the cables loosened, they saw the gangways cleared,
They heard the women weeping, they heard the men that cheered;
Far off, far off, the tumult faded and died away,
And all alone the sea-wind came singing up the Bay. ”

“ To share our pride of place?"
The flag that goes the world around
And flaps on every breeze
Has never gladdened fairer ground
Or kinder hearts than these.
So when the loving-cup's in hand
And Honour leads the cry,
They know not old Northumberland
Who'll pass her memory by.
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For a Trafalgar Cenotaph
Lover of England, stand awhile and gaze
With thankful heart, and lips refrained from praise;
They rest beyond the speech of human pride
Who served with Nelson and with Nelson died. ”

“ And raised his tankard with the rest.
"Drake's luck to all that sail with Drake
For promised lands of gold!
Brave lads, whatever storms may break,
We've weathered worse of old!
To-night the loving-cup we'll drain,
To-morrow for the Spanish Main!"
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Admiral Death
Boys, are ye calling a toast to-night?
(Hear what the sea-wind saith)
Fill for a bumper strong and bright,
And here's to Admiral Death!
He's sailed in a hundred builds o' boat,
He's fought in a thousand kinds o' coat,
He's the senior flag of all that float,
And his name's Admiral Death! ”

“ Saw the faint ripples touch the shore and cease,
And in the duckpond all again was peace.
But since that Science on our eyes hath laid
The wondrous clay from her own spittle made,
We see the widening ripples pass beyond,
The pond becomes the world, the world a pond,
All ether trembles when the pebble falls,
And a light word may ring in starry halls. ”