A Song of the English

 
Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the Horn!
Swift shuttles of an Empire’s loom that weave us, main to main,
The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again!
 
 
Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust on your plates;
Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights!
Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek,
The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak!
 

THE SONG OF THE DEAD

 
Hear now the Song of the Dead – in the North by the torn berg-edges —
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the Dead in the South – in the sun by their skeleton horses,
Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses.
 
 
Song of the Dead in the East – in the heat-rotted jungle hollows,
Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof – in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.
Song of the Dead in the West – in the Barrens, the waste that betrayed them,
Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-mound they made them;
Hear now the Song of the Dead!
 

I

 
We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man’s soul was lent us to lead.
As the deer breaks – as the steer breaks – from the herd where they graze,
In the faith of little children we went on our ways.
 
 
Then the wood failed – then the food failed – then the last water dried —
In the faith of little children we lay down and died.
On the sand-drift – on the veldt-side – in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.
Follow after – follow after! We have watered the root,
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!
 
 
Follow after – we are waiting, by the trails that we lost,
For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.
Follow after – follow after – for the harvest is sown:
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!
 
 
When Drake went down to the Horn
And England was crowned thereby,
’Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed
Our Lodge – our Lodge was born
(And England was crowned thereby!)
 
 
Which never shall close again
By day nor yet by night,
While man shall take his life to stake