Kitobni o'qish: «Songs of love and empire», sahifa 2

TRAFALGAR DAY

 
Laurels, bring laurels, sheaves on sheaves,
Till England’s boughs are bare of leaves!
Soon comes the flower more rare, more dear
Than any laurel this year weaves —
The Aloe of the hundredth year
Since from the smoke of Trafalgar
He passed to where the heroes are,
Nelson, who passed and yet is here,
Whose dust is fire beneath our feet,
 
 
Whose memory mans our fleet.
Laurels, bring laurels, since they hold
His England’s tears in each green fold,
His England’s joy, his England’s pride,
His England’s glories manifold.
Yet what was Victory since he died?
And what was Death since he lives yet,
Above a Nation’s worship set,
Above her heroes glorified? —
Nelson, who made our flag a star
To lead where Victories are!
 

A SONG OF TRAFALGAR

 
Like an angry sun, like a splendid star,
War gleams down the long years’ track;
They strain at the leash, the dogs of war,
And who shall hold them back?
“Let loose the pack: we are English bred,
We will meet them full and fair
With the flag of England over our head,
And his hand to keep it there!”
 
 
So spake our fathers. Our flag, unfurled,
Blew brave to the north and south;
An iron answer we gave the world,
For we spoke by the cannon’s mouth.
But he who taught us the word to say
Grew dumb as his Victory sang,
And England mourned on her triumph day,
And wept while her joy-bells rang.
 
 
Long hour by hour, and long day by day,
The swift years crept apace,
The patient, the coral-insect way,
To cover the dear dead face.
O foolish rabble of envious years,
Who wist not the dead must rise,
His name is music still in our ears,
His face a light to our eyes!
 
 
Bring hither your laurels, the fading sign
Of a deathless love and pride;
These cling more close than the laurels twine,
They are strong as the world is wide:
At the feet of Virtue in Valour clad
Shall glory and love be laid,
While Glory sings to an English lad,
Or Love to an English maid.
 
 
Wherever the gleams of an English fire
On an English roof-tree shine,
Wherever the fire of a youth’s desire
Is laid upon Honour’s shrine,
Wherever brave deeds are treasured and told,
In the tale of the deeds of yore
Like jewels of price in a chain of gold
Are the name and the fame he bore.
 
 
Wherever the track of our English ships
Lies white on the ocean foam,
His name is sweet to our English lips
As the names of the flowers at home;
Wherever the heart of an English boy
Grows big with a deed of worth,
Such names as his name have begot the same,
Such hearts will bring it to birth.
 
 
They say that his England, grown tired and old,
Lies drunk by her heavy hoard;
They say her hands have the grasp of the gold
But not the grip of the sword,
That her robe of glory is rent and shred,
And that winds of shame blow through:
Speak for your England, O mighty Dead,
In the deeds you would have her do!
 
 
Small skill have we to fight with the pen
Who fought with the sword of old,
For the sword that is wielded of Englishmen
Is as much as one hand can hold.
Yet the pen and the tongue are safe to use,
And the coward and the wise choose these;
But fools and brave were our English crews
When Nelson swept the seas.
 
 
’Tis the way of a statesman to fear and fret,
To ponder and pause and plan,
But the way of Nelson was better yet,
For that was the way of a man;
They would teach us smoothness, who once were rough,
They have bidden us palter and pray,
But the way of Nelson was good enough,
For that was the fighting way.
 
 
If Nelson’s England must stoop to bear
What never honour should brook,
In vain does the tomb of her hero wear
The laurel his brow forsook;
In vain was the speech from the lips of her guns,
If now must her lips refrain;
In vain has she made us, her living sons,
Her dead have made her in vain.
 
 
So here with your bays be the dear head crowned,
Lay flowers where the dear dust lies,
And wreathe his column with laurel round
To point his fame to the skies;
But the greenest laurel that ever grew
Is the laurel that’s yet to win;
Crowned with his laurels he waits for You
To bring Your laurels in!
 

WATERLOO DAY

[June 18]

 
This is the day of our glory; this is our day to weep.
Under her dusty laurels England stirs in her sleep;
Dreams of her days of honour, terrible days that are dead,
Days of the making of story, days when the sword was red,
 
 
When all her fate and her future hung on the naked blade,
When by the sword of her children her place in the world was made,
When Honour sounded the trumpet and Valour leapt to obey,
And Heroes bought us the Empire that statesmen would sell to-day.
 
 
England, wanton and weary, sunk in a slothful ease,
Has slain in her wars her thousands, but her tens of thousands in peace:
And the cowards grieve for her glory; their glory is in their shame;
They are glad of the moth in her banners, and the rust on her shining name.
 
 
Oh, if the gods would send us a balm for our sick, sad years,
Let them send us a sight of the scarlet, and the sound of the guns in our ears!
For valour and faith and honour – these grow where the red flower grows,
And the leaves for the Nation’s healing must spring from the blood of her foes.
 

A SONG OF PEACE AND HONOUR

[December, 1895]

TO THE QUEEN

 
Lady and Queen, for whom our laurels twine,
Upon whose head the glories of our land
In one immortal diadem are met,
Embodied England, in whose woman-hand
The sceptre of Imperial sway is set,
Receive this song of mine!
For you are England, and her bays grow green
To deck your brow, your goodness lends her grace,
And in our hearts your face is as Her face;
The Mother-Country is the Mother-Queen.
 

* * * * * *

 
We, men of England, children of her might,
With all our Mother’s record-roll of glory,
Great with her greatness, noble by her name,
Drank with our mothers’ milk our Mother’s story,
And in our veins the splendour of her fame
Made strong our blood and bright;
And to her absent sons her name has been
Familiar music heard in distant lands,
Heart of our heart and sinews of our hands,
England, our Mother, our Mistress and our Queen!
 
 
Out of the thunderous echoes of the past
Through the gold-dust of centuries we hear
Her voice, “O children of a royal line,
Sons of her heart, whom England holdeth dear,
Mine was the Past – make ye the future mine
All glorious to the last!”
And, as we hear her, cowards grow to men,
And men to heroes, and the voice of fear
Is as a whisper in a deaf man’s ear,
And the dead past is quick in us again.
 
 
Her robe is woven of glory and renown,
Hers are the golden-laden Argosies,
And lordship of the wild and watery ways,
Her flag is blown across the utmost seas:
Dead nations built her throne, and kingdoms blaze
For jewels in her crown.
Her Empire like a girdle doth enfold
The world; her feet upon her foes are set;
She wears the steel-wrought, blood-bright amulet
Won by her children in the days of old.
 
 
Yet in a treasury of such gems as these
Which power and sovereignty and kingship fill
To the vast limit of the circling sun,
England, our Mother, in her heart holds still,
As her most precious jewel, save only one,
The priceless pearl of peace —
Peace plucked from out the very heart of war
Through the long agony of strenuous years,
Made pure by blood and sanctified by tears,
A pearl to lie where England’s treasures are.
 
 
O peaceful English lanes all white with may,
O English meadows where the grass grows tall,
O red-roofed village, field and farm and fold
Where the long shadows of the elm-trees fall
On the wide pastures which the sun calls gold
And twilit dew calls gray; —
These are the home, the happy cradle-place
Of every man who has our English tongue,
Sprung from those loins from which our sires have sprung,
Heirs of the glory of our mighty race!
 
 
Brothers, we hold the pearl of priceless worth:
Shall Peace, our pearl, by us be cast aside?
Is it not more to us than all things are?
Nay, Peace is precious as the world is wide,
But England’s honour is more precious far
Than all the heavens and earth.
Were honour outcast from her supreme place
Our pearl of Peace no more a pearl would shine,
But, trampled under-foot of cowards and swine,
Rot in the mire of a deserved disgrace.
 
 
Know then, O ye our brothers over sea,
We will not cast our pearl of Peace away,
But, holding it, we wait; and if, at last,
The whole world came against us in array,
If all our glory into darkness passed,
Our Empire ceased to be,
Yet should we still have chosen the better part
Though in the dust our kingdoms were cast down,
Though lost were every jewel in our crown
We still should wear our jewel in our heart.
 
 
So, for our Mother’s honour, if it must
Let Peace be lost, but lost the worthier way;
Not trampled down, but given, for her sake
Who forged of many an iron yesterday
The golden song that gold-tongued fame shall wake
When we are dust, in dust:
For brotherhood and strife and praise and blame
And all the world, even to our very land,
Weighed in the balance, are as a grain of sand
Against the honour of our English name!
 

II

THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE LADY

 
Sir Geoffrey met the white lady
Upon his marriage morn,
Her eyes were blue as cornflowers are,
Her hair was gold like corn.
 
 
Sir Geoffrey gave the white lady
A posy of roses seven,
“You are the fairest May,” said he,
“That ever strayed from Heaven.”
 
 
Sir Geoffrey by the white lady
Was lured away to shame,
For seven long years of prayers and tears
No tidings of him came.
 
 
Then she who should have been his bride
A mighty oath she swore,
“For seven long years I have wept and prayed,
Now I will pray no more.
 
 
“Since God and all the saints of Heaven
Bring not my lord to me,
I will go down myself to hell
And bring him back,” said she.
 

* * * * *

 
She crept to the white lady’s bower,
The taper’s flame was dim,
And there Sir Geoffrey lay asleep,
And the white witch sat by him.
 
 
Her arm was laid across his neck,
Her gold hair on his face,
And there was silence in the room
As in a burial-place.
 
 
And there were gems and carven cups,
And ’broidered bridal gear —
“Whose bridal is this?” the lady said,
“And what knight have ye here?”
 
 
“The good knight here ye know full well,
He was your lord, I trow,
But I have taken him from your side,
And I am his lady now.
 
 
“This seven year with right good cheer
We twain our bridal keep,
So take for your mate another knight
And let my dear lord sleep.”
 
 
Then up and spake Sir Geoffrey’s bride,
“What bridal cheer is this?
I would think scorn to have the lips
Who could not have the kiss!
 
 
“I would think scorn to take the half
Who could not have the whole;
I would think scorn to steal the body
Who could not take the soul!
 
 
“For, though ye hold his body fast
This seven weary year,
His soul walks ever at my side
And whispers in my ear.
 
 
“I would think scorn to hold in sleep
What, if it waked, would flee,
So let his body join his soul
And both fare forth with me;
“For I have learned a spell more strong
Than yours that laid him low,
And I will speak it for his sake
Because I love him so!”
 
 
The white lady threw back her hair,
Her eyes began to shine —
“His soul is thine these seven years? —
To-night it shall be mine!
 
 
“I have been brave to hold him here
While seven long years befell,
Rather than let a bridal be
Whose seed should flower in hell.
 
 
“I have not looked into his eyes
Nor joined my lips to his,
For fear his soul should spring to flame
And shrivel at my kiss.
 
 
“I have been brave to watch his sleep
While the long hours come and go,
To hold the body without the soul,
Because I love him so.
 
 
“But since his soul this seven year
Has sat by thee,” she said,
“His body and soul to-night shall lie
Upon my golden bed.
 
 
“Thou hast no need to speak the spell
That thou hast learned,” said she,
“For I will wake him from his sleep
And take his soul from thee.”
 
 
She stooped above him where he lay,
She laid her lips on his;
He stirred, he spake: “These seven long years
I have waited for thy kiss.
 
 
“My soul has hung upon thy lips
And trembled at thy breath,
Thou hast given me life in a cup to drink,
As God will give me death.
 
 
“Why didst thou fear to kill my soul
Which only lives for thee?
Thou hast put seven wasted years,
O love, ’twixt thee and me.”