A Channel Passage and Other Poems Part 6

VII

No clamour of cries or of parties Is worth but a whisper from thee, While only the trust of thy heart is At one with the soul of the sea.

In justice her trust is Whose time her tidestreams keep; They sink not, they shrink not, Time casts them not on sleep.

VIII

Sleep thou: for thy past was so royal, Love hardly would bid thee take heed Were Russia not faithful and loyal Nor Germany guiltless of greed.

No nation, in station Of story less than thou, Re-risen from prison, Can stand against thee now.

IX

Sleep on: is the time not a season For strong men to slumber and sleep, And wise men to palter with treason?

And that they sow tares, shall they reap?

The wages of ages Wherein men smiled and slept, Fame fails them, shame veils them, Their record is not kept.

X

Nay, whence is it then that we know it, What wages were theirs, and what fame?

Deep voices of prophet and poet Bear record against them of shame.

Death, starker and darker Than seals the graveyard grate, Entombs them and dooms them To darkness deep as fate.

XI

But thou, though the world should mis...o...b.. thee, Be strong as the seas at thy side; Bind on but thine armour about thee, That girds thee with power and with pride.

Where Drake stood, where Blake stood, Where fame sees Nelson stand, Stand thou too, and now too Take thou thy fate in hand.

XII

At the gate of the sea, in the gateway, They stood as the guards of thy gate; Take now but thy strengths to thee straightway, Though late, we will deem it not late.

Thy story, thy glory, The very soul of thee, It rose not, it grows not, It comes not save by sea.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Between our eastward and our westward sea The narrowing strand Clasps close the n.o.blest sh.o.r.e fame holds in fee Even here where English birth seals all men free-- Northumberland.

The sea-mists meet across it when the snow Clothes moor and fell, And bid their true-born hearts who love it glow For joy that none less n.o.bly born may know What love knows well.

The splendour and the strength of storm and fight Sustain the song That filled our fathers' hearts with joy to smite, To live, to love, to lay down life that right Might tread down wrong.

They warred, they sang, they triumphed, and they pa.s.sed, And left us glad Here to be born, their sons, whose hearts hold fast The proud old love no change can overcast, No chance leave sad.

None save our northmen ever, none but we, Met, pledged, or fought Such foes and friends as Scotland and the sea With heart so high and equal, strong in glee And stern in thought.

Thought, fed from time's memorial springs with pride, Made strong as fire Their hearts who hurled the foe down Flodden side, And hers who rode the waves none else durst ride-- None save her sire.

O land beloved, where nought of legend's dream Outshines the truth, Where Joyous Gard, closed round with clouds that gleam For them that know thee not, can scarce but seem Too sweet for sooth,

Thy sons forget not, nor shall fame forget, The deed there done Before the walls whose fabled fame is yet A light too sweet and strong to rise and set With moon and sun.

Song bright as flash of swords or oars that shine Through fight or foam Stirs yet the blood thou hast given thy sons like wine To hail in each bright ballad hailed as thine One heart, one home.

Our Collingwood, though Nelson be not ours, By him shall stand Immortal, till those waifs of oldworld hours, Forgotten, leave uncrowned with bays and flowers Northumberland.

STRATFORD-ON-AVON

JUNE 27, 1901

Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered, Most royal and most loyal born of men, Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken.

The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth, Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than Rome, Forgets not how of all on English earth Their trust is holiest, there who have their home.

Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate The commonweal whose empire sets men free Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate A soul was born as boundless as the sea.

If life, if love, if memory now be thine, Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign.

BURNS: AN ODE

A fire of fierce and laughing light That clove the shuddering heart of night Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might That pants and yearns Made fitful music round its flight: And earth saw Burns.

The joyous lightning found its voice And bade the heart of wrath rejoice And scorn uplift a song to voice The imperial hate That smote the G.o.d of base men's choice At G.o.d's own gate.

Before the shrine of dawn, wherethrough The lark rang rapture as she flew, It flashed and fired the darkling dew: And all that heard With love or loathing hailed anew A new day's word.

The servants of the lord of h.e.l.l, As though their lord had blessed them, fell Foaming at mouth for fear, so well They knew the lie Wherewith they sought to scan and spell The unsounded sky.

And Calvin, night's prophetic bird, Out of his home in h.e.l.l was heard Shrieking; and all the fens were stirred Whence plague is bred; Can G.o.d endure the scoffer's word?

But G.o.d was dead.

The G.o.d they made them in despite Of man and woman, love and light, Strong sundawn and the starry night, The lie supreme, Shot through with song, stood forth to sight A devil's dream.

And he that bent the lyric bow And laid the lord of darkness low And bade the fire of laughter glow Across his grave, And bade the tides above it flow, Wave hurtling wave,

Shall he not win from latter days More than his own could yield of praise?

Ay, could the sovereign singer's bays Forsake his brow, The warrior's, won on stormier ways, Still clasp it now.