Thou careless, awake! Thou peacemaker, fight! Stand England for honour And God guard the Right!
Thy mirth lay aside, Thy cavil and play; The fiend is upon thee And grave is the day.
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Through fire, air and water Thy trial must be; But they that love life best Die gladly for thee.
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Much suffering shall cleanse thee But thou through the flood Shalt win to salvation, To beauty through blood.
Up, careless, awake! Ye peacemakers, fight! Stand England for honour, And God guard the Right!
August, 1914.
LORD KITCHENER
Unflinching hero, watchful to foresee And face thy country’s peril wheresoe’er, Directing war and peace with equal care, Till by long toil ennobled thou wert he Whom England call’d and bade “Set my arm free To obey my will and save my honour fair”— What day the foe presumed on her despair And she herself had trust in none but thee:
Among Herculean deeds the miracle That mass’d the labour of ten years in one Shall be thy monument. Thy work is done Ere we could thank thee; and the high sea-swell Surgeth unheeding where thy proud ship fell By the lone Orkneys, at the set of sun.
ODE ON THE TERCENTENARY COMMEMORATION OF SHAKESPEARE, 1916
Kind dove-wing’d Peace, for whose green olive-crown The noblest kings would give their diadems, Mother who hast ruled our home so long, How suddenly art thou fled! Leaving our cities astir with war; And yet on the fair fields deserted Lingerest, wherever the gaudy seasons Deck with excessive splendour The sorrow-stricken year, Where cornlands bask and high elms rustle gently, And still the unweeting birds sing on by brae and bourn.
The trumpet blareth and calleth the true to be stern Be then thy soft reposeful music dumb; Yet shall thy lovers awhile give ear —Tho’ in war’s garb they come— To the praise of England’s gentlest son; Whom when she bore the Muses lov’d Above the best of eldest honour —Yea, save one without peer— And by great Homer set, Not to impugn his undisputed throne, The myriad-hearted by the mighty-hearted one.
For God of His gifts pour’d on him a full measure, And gave him to know Nature and the ways of men: To dower with inexhaustible treasure A world-conquering speech, Which surg’d as a river high-descended That gathering tributaries of many lands Rolls through the plain a bounteous flood, Picturing towers and temples And ruin of bygone times, And floateth the ships deep-laden with merchandise Out on the windy seas to traffic in foreign climes.
Thee Shakespeare to-day we honour; and evermore, Since England bore thee, the master of human song, Thy folk are we, children of thee, Who knitting in one her realm And strengthening with pride her sea-borne clans, Scorn’st in the grave the bruize of death. All thy later-laurel’d choir Laud thee in thy world-shrine: London’s laughter is thine; One with thee is our temper in melancholy or might, And in thy book Great-Britain’s rule readeth her right.
Her chains are chains of Freedom, and her bright arms Honour Justice and Truth and Love to man. Though first from a pirate ancestry She took her home on the wave, Her gentler spirit arose disdainful, And smiting the fetters of slavery Made the high seaways safe and free, In wisdom bidding aloud To world-wide brotherhood, Till her flag was hail’d as the ensign of Liberty, And the boom of her guns went round the earth in salvos of peace.
And thou, when Nature bow’d her mastering hand To borrow an ecstasy of man’s art from thee, Thou her poet secure as she Of the shows of eternity, Didst never fear thy work should fall To fashion’s craze nor pedant’s folly Nor devastator whose arrogant arms Murder and maim mankind; Who when in scorn of grace He hath batter’d and burn’d some loveliest dearest shrine, Laugheth in ire and boasteth aloud his brazen god.
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I saw the Angel of Earth from strife aloof Mounting the heavenly stair with Time on high, Growing ever younger in the brightening air Of the everlasting dawn: It was not terror in his eyes nor wonder, That glance of the intimate exaltation Which lieth as Power under all Being, And broodeth in Thought above, As a bird wingeth over the ocean, Whether indolently the heavy water sleepeth Or is dash’d in a million waves, chafing or lightly laughing.
I hear his voice in the music of lamentation, In echoing chant and cadenced litany, In country song and pastoral piping And silvery dances of mirth: And oft, as the eyes of a lion in the brake, His presence hath startled me, In austere shapes of beauty lurking, Beautiful for Beauty’s sake; As a lonely blade of life Ariseth to flower whensoever the unseen Will Stirreth with kindling aim the dark fecundity of Being.
Man knoweth but as in a dream of his own desire The thing that is good for man, and he dreameth well: But the lot of the gentle heart is hard That is cast in an epoch of life, When evil is knotted and demons fight, Who know not, they, that the lowest lot Is treachery hate and trust in sin And perseverance in ill, Doom’d to oblivious Hell, To pass with the shames unspoken of men away, Wash’d out with their tombs by the grey unpitying tears of Heaven.
But ye, dear Youth, who lightly in the day of fury Put on England’s glory as a common coat, And in your stature of masking grace Stood forth warriors complete, No praise o’ershadoweth yours to-day, Walking out of the home of love To match the deeds of all the dead.— Alas! alas! fair Peace, These were thy blossoming roses. Look on thy shame, fair Peace, thy tearful shame! Turn to thine isle, fair Peace; return thou and guard it well!