No More Learning

Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.
Comfort, content, delight--
The ages' slow-bought gain--
They shrivelled in a night,
Only ourselves remain
To face the naked days
In silent fortitude,
Through perils and dismays
Renewed and re-renewed.

Though all we made depart,
The old commandments stand:
"In patience keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand. "

No easy hopes or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul
There is but one task for all--
For each one life to give.
Who stands if freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?

_Rudyard Kipling_




ENGLAND TO FREE MEN


Men of my blood, you English men!
From misty hill and misty fen,
From cot, and town, and plough, and moor,
Come in--before I shut the door!
Into my courtyard paved with stones
That keep the names, that keep the bones,
Of none but English men who came
Free of their lives, to guard my fame.

I am your native land who bred
No driven heart, no driven head;
I fly a flag in every sea
Round the old Earth, of Liberty!
I am the Land that boasts a crown;
The sun comes up, the sun goes down--
And never men may say of me,
Mine is a breed that is not free.

I have a wreath! My forehead wears
A hundred leaves--a hundred years
I never knew the words: "You must! "
And shall my wreath return to dust?
Freemen!
The door is yet ajar;
From northern star to southern star,
O ye who count and ye who delve,
Come in--before my clock strikes twelve!

_John Galsworthy_




_PRO PATRIA_


England, in this great fight to which you go
Because, where Honour calls you, go you must,
Be glad, whatever comes, at least to know
You have your quarrel just.

Peace was your care; before the nations' bar
Her cause you pleaded and her ends you sought;
But not for her sake, being what you are,
Could you be bribed and bought.

Others may spurn the pledge of land to land,
May with the brute sword stain a gallant past;
But by the seal to which _you_ set your hand,
Thank God, you still stand fast!

Forth, then, to front that peril of the deep
With smiling lips and in your eyes the light,
Steadfast and confident, of those who keep
Their storied 'scutcheon bright.

And we, whose burden is to watch and wait,--
High-hearted ever, strong in faith and prayer,--
We ask what offering we may consecrate,
What humble service share.

To steel our souls against the lust of ease;
To bear in silence though our hearts may bleed;
To spend ourselves, and never count the cost,
For others' greater need;--

To go our quiet ways, subdued and sane;
To hush all vulgar clamour of the street;
With level calm to face alike the strain
Of triumph or defeat;

This be our part, for so we serve you best,
So best confirm their prowess and their pride,
Your warrior sons, to whom in this high test
Our fortunes we confide.

_Owen Seaman_

_August 12, 1914_




LINES WRITTEN IN SURREY, 1917


A sudden swirl of song in the bright sky--
The little lark adoring his lord the sun;
Across the corn the lazy ripples run;
Under the eaves, conferring drowsily,

Doves droop or amble; the agile waterfly
Wrinkles the pool; and flowers, gay and dun,
Rose, bluebell, rhododendron, one by one,
The buccaneering bees prove busily.

Ah, who may trace this tranquil loveliness
In verse felicitous? --no measure tells;
But gazing on her bosom we can guess
Why men strike hard for England in red hells,
Falling on dreams, 'mid Death's extreme caress,
Of English daisies dancing in English dells.

_George Herbert Clarke_




FRANCE


Because for once the sword broke in her hand,
The words she spoke seemed perished for a space;
All wrong was brazen, and in every land
The tyrants walked abroad with naked face.

The waters turned to blood, as rose the Star
Of evil Fate denying all release.
The rulers smote, the feeble crying "War! "
The usurers robbed, the naked crying "Peace! "

And her own feet were caught in nets of gold,
And her own soul profaned by sects that squirm,
And little men climbed her high seats and sold
Her honour to the vulture and the worm.

And she seemed broken and they thought her dead,
The Overmen, so brave against the weak.