battleships
    Ten, twenty, thirty, there they go.
  Brag about your cruisers like Leviathans—
    A thousand men a-piece down below.
  But here's just one little Admiral
    We're all of us his brothers and his sons,
  And he's worth, O he's worth at the very least
    Double all your tons and all your guns.

Stand by, etc.

  See them on the forebridge signalling—
    A score of men a-hauling hand to hand,
  And the whole fleet flying like the wild geese
    Moved by some mysterious command.
  Where's the mighty will that shows the way to them,
    The mind that sees ahead so quick and clear?
  He's there, Sir, walking all alone there—
    The little man whose voice you never hear.

Stand by, etc.

{8}

  There are queer things that only come to sailormen;
    They're true, but they're never understood;
  And I know one thing about the Admiral,
    That I can't tell rightly as I should.
  I've been with him when hope sank under us—
    He hardly seemed a mortal like the rest,
  I could swear that he had stars upon his uniform,
    And one sleeve pinned across his breast.

Stand by, etc.

  Some day we're bound to sight the enemy,
    He's coming, tho' he hasn't yet a name.
  Keel to keel and gun to gun he'll challenge us
    To meet him at the Great Armada game.
  None knows what may be the end of it,
    But we'll all give our bodies and our souls
  To see the little Admiral a-playing him
    A rubber of the old Long Bowls!

Stand by, etc.

{9}

V

The Song of the Guns at Sea

  Oh hear! Oh hear!
  Across the sullen tide
  Across the echoing dome horizon-wide
  What pulse of fear
  Beats with tremendous boom!
  What call of instant doom,
  With thunderstroke of terror and of pride,
  With urgency that may not be denied,
  Reverberates upon the heart's own drum
  Come! . . . Come! . . . for thou must come!

  Come forth, O Soul!
  This is thy day of power.
  This is the day and this the glorious hour
  That was the goal
  Of thy self-conquering strife.
  The love of child and wife,
  The fields of Earth and the wide ways of Thought—
  Did not thy purpose count them all as nought
  That in this moment thou thyself mayst give
  And in thy country's life for ever live?

{10}

  Therefore rejoice
  That in thy passionate prime
  Youth's nobler hope disdained the spoils of Time
  And thine own choice
  Fore-earned for thee this day.
  Rejoice! rejoice to obey
  In the great hour of life that men call Death
  The beat that bids thee draw heroic breath,
  Deep-throbbing till thy mortal heart be dumb
  Come! . . . Come! . . . the time is come!

{11}

VI

Farewell

  Mother, with unbowed head
    Hear thou across the sea
  The farewell of the dead,
    The dead who died for thee.
  Greet them again with tender words and grave,
  For, saving thee, themselves they could not save.

  To keep the house unharmed
    Their fathers built so fair,
  Deeming endurance armed
    Better than brute despair,
  They found the secret of the word that saith,
  "Service is sweet, for all true life is death."

  So greet thou well thy dead
    Across the homeless sea,
  And be thou comforted
    Because they died for thee.
  Far off they served, but now their deed is done
  For evermore their life and thine are one.

{12}

Ode for Trafalgar Day, 1905

"Partial firing continued until 4.30, when a victory having been
reported to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B., and
Commander-in-Chief, he then died of his wound."—Log of the Victory,
October 21, 1805.

  England! to-day let fire be in thine eyes
    And in thy heart the throb of leaping guns;
  Crown in thy streets the deed that never dies,
    And tell their fathers' fame to all thy sons!
  Behold! behold! on that unchanging sea
    Where day behind Trafalgar rises pale,
      How dread the storm to be
      Drifts up with ominous breath
    Cloud after towering cloud of billowy sail
      Full charged with thunder and the bolts of death.

  Yet when the noon is past, and thy delight,
    More delicate for these good hundred years,
  Has drunk the splendour and the sound of fight
    And the sweet sting of long-since vanished fears,
  Then, England, come thou down with sterner lips
    From the bright world of thy substantial power,
      Forget thy seas, thy ships,
      And that wide echoing dome
    To watch the soul of man in his dark hour
      Redeeming yet his dear lost land of home.

{13}

  What place is this? What under-world of pain
    All shadow-barred with glare of swinging fires?
  What writhing phantoms of the newly slain?
    What cries? What thirst consuming all desires?
  This is the field of battle: not for life,
    Not for the deeper life that dwells in love,
      Not for the savour of strife
      Or the far call of fame,
    Not for all these the fight: all these above
      The soul of this man cherished Duty's name.

  His steadfast hope from self has turned away,
    For the Cause only must he still contend:
  "How goes the day with us? How goes the day?"
    He craves not victory, but to make an end.
  Therefore not yet thine hour, O Death: but when
    The weapons forged against his country's peace
      Lie broken round him—then
      Give him the kiss supreme;
    Then let the tumult of his warfare cease
      And the last dawn dispel his anguished dream.

{14}

The Hundredth Year

"Drake, and Blake, and Nelson's mighty name."

  The stars were faint in heaven
    That saw the Old Year die,
  The dream-white mist of Devon
    Shut in the seaward sky:
  Before the dawn's unveiling
  I heard three voices hailing,
  I saw three ships come sailing
    With lanterns gleaming high.

  The first he cried defiance—
    A full-mouthed voice and bold—
  "On God be our reliance,
    Our hope the Spaniard's gold!
  With a still, stern ambuscado,
  With a roaring escalado,
  We'll sack their Eldorado
    And storm their dungeon hold!"