Poems and Ballads (Third Series) | Page 7

we that the wind and sea gird round with shelter of storms
and waves?Know not him that ye worship, grim as dreams that quicken from dead
men's graves:?God is one with the sea, the sun, the land that nursed us, the love
that saves.
Love whose heart is in ours, and part of all things noble and all
things fair;?Sweet and free as the circling sea, sublime and kind as the
fostering air;?Pure of shame as is England's name, whose crowns to come are as
crowns that were.
IV
I
But the Lord of darkness, the God whose love is a flaming fire, The master whose mercy fulfils wide hell till its torturers tire, He shall surely have heed of his servants who serve him for love,
not hire.
They shall fetter the wing of the wind whose pinions are plumed
with foam:?For now shall thy horn be exalted, and now shall thy bolt strike
home;?Yea, now shall thy kingdom come, Lord God of the priests of Rome.
They shall cast thy curb on the waters, and bridle the waves of the
sea:?They shall say to her, Peace, be still: and stillness and peace
shall be:?And the winds and the storms shall hear them, and tremble, and
worship thee.
Thy breath shall darken the morning, and wither the mounting sun; And the daysprings, frozen and fettered, shall know thee, and cease
to run;?The heart of the world shall feel thee, and die, and thy will be
done.
The spirit of man that would sound thee, and search out causes of
things,?Shall shrink and subside and praise thee: and wisdom, with
plume-plucked wings,?Shall cower at thy feet and confess thee, that none may fathom thy
springs.
The fountains of song that await but the wind of an April to be To burst the bonds of the winter, and speak with the sound of a
sea,?The blast of thy mouth shall quench them: and song shall be only of
thee.
The days that are dead shall quicken, the seasons that were shall
return;?And the streets and the pastures of England, the woods that burgeon
and yearn,?Shall be whitened with ashes of women and children and men that
burn.
For the mother shall burn with the babe sprung forth of her womb in
fire,?And bride with bridegroom, and brother with sister, and son with
sire;?And the noise of the flames shall be sweet in thine ears as the
sound of a lyre.
Yea, so shall thy kingdom be stablished, and so shall the signs of
it be:?And the world shall know, and the wind shall speak, and the sun
shall see,?That these are the works of thy servants, whose works bear witness
to thee.
II
But the dusk of the day falls fruitless, whose light should have
lit them on:?Sails flash through the gloom to shoreward, eclipsed as the sun
that shone:?And the west wind wakes with dawn, and the hope that was here is
gone.
Around they wheel and around, two knots to the Spaniard's one, The wind-swift warriors of England, who shoot as with shafts of the
sun,?With fourfold shots for the Spaniard's, that spare not till day be
done.
And the wind with the sundown sharpens, and hurtles the ships to
the lee,?And Spaniard on Spaniard smites, and shatters, and yields; and we, Ere battle begin, stand lords of the battle, acclaimed of the sea.
And the day sweeps round to the nightward; and heavy and hard the
waves?Roll in on the herd of the hurtling galleons; and masters and
slaves?Reel blind in the grasp of the dark strong wind that shall dig
their graves.
For the sepulchres hollowed and shaped of the wind in the swerve of
the seas,?The graves that gape for their pasture, and laugh, thrilled through
by the breeze,?The sweet soft merciless waters, await and are fain of these.
As the hiss of a Python heaving in menace of doom to be They hear through the clear night round them, whose hours are as
clouds that flee,?The whisper of tempest sleeping, the heave and the hiss of the sea.
But faith is theirs, and with faith are they girded and helmed and
shod:?Invincible are they, almighty, elect for a sword and a rod; Invincible even as their God is omnipotent, infinite, God.
In him is their strength, who have sworn that his glory shall wax
not dim:?In his name are their war-ships hallowed as mightiest of all that
swim:?The men that shall cope with these, and conquer, shall cast out
him.
In him is the trust of their hearts; the desire of their eyes is
he;?The light of their ways, made lightning for men that would fain be
free:?Earth's hosts are with them, and with them is heaven: but with us
is the sea.
V
I
And a day and a night pass over;?And the heart of their chief swells high;?For England, the warrior, the rover,?Whose banners on all winds fly,?Soul-stricken, he saith, by the shadow of death, holds off him, and
draws not nigh.
And the wind and the dawn together?Make in from the gleaming east:?And fain of the wild glad weather?As famine is fain of feast,?And fain of the fight, forth sweeps in its might the host of