Archives: Poems

The American Spirit speaks: 

1 
To the Judge of Right and Wrong
  With Whom fulfilment lies
Our purpose and our power belong,
  Our faith and sacrifice.
2 
Let Freedom’s Land rejoice!
   Our ancient bonds are riven;
Once more to us the eternal choice
  Of Good or Ill is given. 
3 
Not at a little cost,
  Hardly by prayer or tears,
Shall we recover the road we lost
  In the drugged and doubting years. 
4 
But, after the fires and the wrath,
  But, after searching and pain,
His Mercy opens us a path
  To live with ourselves again. 
5 
In the Gates of Death rejoice!
  We see and hold the good—
Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice
   With Freedom’s brotherhood! 
6 
Then praise the Lord Most High
    Whose Strength hath saved us whole,
Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die
   And not the living Soul! 
7 
To the God in Man displayed—
  Wheree’er we see that Birth,
Be love and understanding paid
   As never yet on earth! 
8 
To the Spirit that moves in Man,
   On Whom all worlds depend,
Be Glory since our world began
   And service to the end! 

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1 
Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee
Our love and toil in the years to be;
When we are grown and take our place
As men and women with our race.
2 
Father in Heaven who lovest all,
Oh, help Thy children when they call;
That they may build from age to age
An undefiled heritage.
3 
Teach us to bear the yoke in youth,
With steadfastness and careful truth;
That, in our time, Thy Grace may give
The Truth whereby the Nations live.
4 
Teach us to rule ourselves alway,
Controlled and cleanly night and day;
That we may bring, if need arise,
No maimed or worthless sacrifice.
5 
Teach us to look in all our ends
On Thee for judge, and not our friends;
That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed
By fear or favour of the crowd.
6 
Teach us the Strength that cannot seek,
By deed or thought, to hurt the weak;
That, under Thee, we may possess
Man's strength to comfort man's distress.
7 
Teach us Delight in simple things,
And Mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And Love to all men 'neath the sun!
8 
Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride,
For whose dear sake our fathers died;
Oh, Motherland, we pledge to thee
Head, heart and hand through the years to be!

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These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our sight.
We have only the memory left of their home-treasured sayings and laughter.
The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another's hereafter.
Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it. That is our right.
But who shall return us the children?  

At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences,
And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us,
The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time prepared for us -
Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences. 

They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us,
Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment o'ercame us.
They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learning
Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning
Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour.
Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her! 

Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.
The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:
Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,
Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them. 

That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given
To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven - 
By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires
To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes - to be cindered by fires -
To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation
From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation.
But who shall return us our children?

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1 
Or ever the battered liners sank 
  With their passengers to the dark,
I was head of a Walworth Bank,
  And you were a grocer's clerk. 
2 
I was a dealer in stocks and shares,
  And you in butters and teas;
And we both abandoned our own affairs
  And took to the dreadful seas.
3 
Wet and worry about our ways– 
  Panic, onset and flight– 
Had us in charge for a thousand days 
  And thousand-year-long night.
4 
We saw more than the nights could hide– 
  More than the waves could keep– 
And–certain faces over the side
  Which do not go from our sleep.
5 
We were more tired than words can tell
  While the pied craft fled by,
And the swinging mounds of the Western swell
  Hoisted us Heavens-high . . .
6 
Now there is nothing–not even our rank– 
  To witness what we have been;
And I am returned to my Walworth Bank,
  And you to your margarine!

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1 
For things we never mention,
  For Art misunderstood —
For excellent intention
  That did not turn to good;
From ancient tales' renewing,
  From clouds we would not clear —
Beyond the Law's pursuing
  We fled, and settled here.
2 
We took no tearful leaving,
  We bade no long good-byes.
Men talked of crime and thieving,
  Men wrote of fraud and lies.
To save our injured feelings
  'Twas time and time to go —
Behind was dock and Dartmoor,
  Ahead lay Callao!
3 
The widow and the orphan
  That pray for ten per cent,
They clapped their trailers on us
  To spy the road we went.
They watched the foreign sailings
  (They scan the shipping still),
And that's your Christian people
  Returning good for ill!
4 
God bless the thoughtful islands
  Where never warrants come;
God bless the just Republics
  That give a man a home,
That ask no foolish questions,
  But set him on his feet;
And save his wife and daughters
   From the workhouse and the street!
5 
On church and square and market
  The noonday silence falls;
You'll hear the drowsy mutter
  Of the fountain in our halls.
Asleep amid the yuccas
  The city takes her ease —
Till twilight brings the land-wind
   To the clicking jalousies.
6 
Day long the diamond weather,
  The high, unaltered blue —
The smell of goats and incense
  And the mule-bells tinkling through.
Day long the warder ocean
  That keeps us from our kin,
And once a month our levee
  When the English mail comes in.
7 
You'll find us up and waiting
  To treat you at the bar;
You'll find us less exclusive
  Than the average English are.
We'll meet you with a carriage,
  Too glad to show you round,
But — we do not lunch on steamers,
  For they are English ground.
8 
We sail o' nights to England
   And join our smiling Boards —
Our wives go in with Viscounts
  And our daughters dance with Lords,
But behind our princely doings,
  And behind each coup we make,
We feel there's Something Waiting,
  And — we meet It when we wake.
9 
Ah, God! One sniff of England —
  To greet our flesh and blood —
To hear the traffic slurring
  Once more through London mud!
Our towns of wasted honour —
  Our streets of lost delight!
How stands the old Lord Warden?
  Are Dover's cliffs still white?

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