For God; Oh ye who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand

Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance-parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered,-children brave and free
Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an Empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.

Sydney Dobell [1824-1874]

TO AMERICA

ON A PROPOSED ALLIANCE BETWEEN TWO GREAT NATIONS

WHAT is the voice I hear

On the winds of the western sea? Sentinel, listen from out Cape Clear And say what the voice may be.

'Tis a proud free people calling loud to a people proud

and free.

And it says to them: "Kinsmen, hail;

We severed have been too long.

Now let us have done with a worn-out tale

The tale of ancient wrong

And our friendship last long as our love doth last, and be

stronger than death is strong."

Answer them, sons of the self-same race,

And blood of the self-same clan;

Let us speak with each other face to face

And answer as man to man,

And loyally love and trust each other as none but free

men can.

Now fling them out to the breeze,

Shamrock, Thistle, and Rose,

And the Star-spangled Banner unfurl with these-
A message to friends and foes

Wherever the sails of peace are seen and wherever the

war wind blows

Saxon Grit

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A message to bond and thrall to wake,

For whenever we come, we twain,

The throne of the tyrant shall rock and quake,

And his menace be void and vain,

For you are lords of a strong land and we are lords of the main.

Yes, this is the voice of the bluff March gale;

We severed have been too long,

But now we have done with a worn-out tale

The tale of an ancient wrong

And our friendship shall last as love doth last and be

stronger than death is strong.

Alfred Austin [1835

SAXON GRIT

WORN with the battle of Stamford town,
Fighting the Norman by Hastings bay,
Harold the Saxon's sun went down,

While the acorns were falling one autumn day.
Then the Norman said, "I am lord of the land:
By tenor of conquest here I sit;

I will rule you now with the iron hand;"
But he had not thought of the Saxon grit.

He took the land, and he took the men,

And burnt the homesteads from Trent to Tyne,
Made the freemen serfs by a stroke of the pen,
Eat up the corn and drank the wine,

And said to the maiden, pure and fair,
"You shall be my leman, as is most fit,
Your Saxon churl may rot in his lair;"
But he had not measured the Saxon grit.

To the merry greenwood went bold Robin Hood,

With his strong-hearted yeomanry ripe for the fray,
Driving the arrow into the marrow

Of all the proud Normans who came in his way;

Scorning the fetter, fearless and free,

Winning by valor, or foiling by wit, Dear to our Saxon folk ever is he,

This merry old rogue with the Saxon grit.

And Kett the tanner whipped out his knife,
And Watt the smith his hammer brought down,
For ruth of the maid he loved better than life,
And by breaking a head, made a hole in the Crown.
From the Saxon heart rose a mighty roar,

"Our life shall not be by the King's permit; We will fight for the right, we want no more;" Then the Norman found out the Saxon grit.

For slow and sure as the oaks had grown

From acorns falling that autumn day,
So the Saxon manhood in thorpe and town
To a nobler stature grew alway;
Winning by inches, holding by clinches,
Standing by law and the human right,
Many times failing, never once quailing,

So the new day came out of the night.

Then rising afar in the Western sea,

A new world stood in the morn of the day,

Ready to welcome the brave and free,

Who would wrench out the heart and march away

From the narrow, contracted, dear old land,

Where the poor are held by a cruel bit,

To ampler spaces for heart and hand—

And here was a chance for the Saxon grit.

Steadily steering, eagerly peering,

Trusting in God your fathers came, Pilgrims and strangers, fronting all dangers, Cool-headed Saxons, with hearts aflame. Bound by the letter, but free from the fetter, And hiding their freedom in Holy Writ, They gave Deuteronomy hints in economy, And made a new Moses of Saxon grit.

At Gibraltar

They whittled and waded through forest and fen,
Fearless as ever of what might befall;
Pouring out life for the nurture of men,

In faith that by manhood the world wins all.
Inventing baked beans and no end of machines;
Great with the rifle and great with the axe-
Sending their notions over the oceans,

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To fill empty stomachs and straighten bent backs.

Swift to take chances that end in the dollar,
Yet open of hand when the dollar is made,
Maintaining the meetin', exalting the scholar,
But a little too anxious about a good trade;
This is young Jonathan, son of old John,
Positive, peaceable, firm in the right,
Saxon men all of us, may we be one,

Steady for freedom, and strong in her might.

Then, slow and sure, as the oaks have grown
From the acorns that fell on that autumn day,
So this new manhood in city and town,

To a nobler stature will grow alway;
Winning by inches, holding by clinches,

Slow to contention, and slower to quit,
Now and then failing, never once quailing,
Let us thank God for the Saxon grit.
Robert Collyer [1823-

AT GIBRALTAR

I

ENGLAND, I stand on thy imperial ground,
Not all a stranger; as thy bugles blow,
I feel within my blood old battles flow,-

The blood whose ancient founts in thee are found.
Still surging dark against the Christian bound

While Islam presses; well its peoples know
Thy heights that watch them wandering below;
I think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound.

I turn, and meet the cruel, turbaned face.
England! 'tis sweet to be so much thy son!
I feel the conqueror in my blood and race;
Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day
Gibraltar wakened; hark, thy evening gun
Startles the desert over Africa!

II

Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas
Between the East and West, that God has built;
Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt,

While run thy armies true with His decrees;

Law, justice, liberty,-great gifts are these;

Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt, Lest, mixed and sullied with his country's guilt, The soldier's life-stream flow, and Heaven displease! Two swords there are: one naked, apt to smite,

Thy blade of war; and, battle-storied, one Rejoices in the sheath, and hides from light. American I am; would wars were done!

Now westward, look, my country bids good-night,-Peace to the world from ports without a gun! George Edward Woodberry [1855

MOTHER ENGLAND

I

THERE was a rover from a western shore,
England! whose eyes the sudden tears did drown,
Beholding the white cliff and sunny down
Of thy good realm, beyond the sea's uproar.
I, for a moment, dreamed that, long before,
I had beheld them thus, when, with the frown
Of sovereignty, the victor's palm and crown
Thou from the tilting-field of nations bore.
Thy prowess and thy glory dazzled first;
But when in fields I saw the tender flame
Of primroses, and full-fleeced lambs at play,
Meseemed I at thy breast, like these, was nursed;