Where the primroses bloom, and the nightingales sing, And the honest poor man is as good as a king.
Showery! Flowery!
Tearful! Cheerful!
England, wave-guarded and green to the shore!
West Land! Best Land!
Thy Land! My Land!
Glory be with her, and Peace evermore!
There's a land, a dear land, where our vigour of soul,
Is fed by the tempests that blow from the Pole;
Where a slave cannot breathe, or invader presume,
To ask for more earth than will cover his tomb.
Sea Land! Free Land!
Home of brave men, and the girls they adore!
Thy Land! My Land!
Glory be with her, and Peace evermore!
GREEN fields of England! wheresoe'er
Across this watery waste we fare,
One image at our hearts we bear,
Green fields of England everywhere.
Sweet eyes in England, I must flee
Past where the waves' last confines be,
Ere your loved smile I cease to see,
Sweet eyes in England, dear to me!
Dear home in England, safe and fast
If but in thee my lot lie cast,
The past shall seem a nothing past
To thee, dear home, if won at last;
Dear home in England, won at last!
Arthur Hugh Clough.
SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly! But westward, look, the land is bright! Arthur Hugh Clough.
ODE TO THE NORTH-EAST WIND
WELCOME, Wild North-Easter!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black North-Easter!
O'er the German foam;
O'er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.
Tired we are of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter,
Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild-fowl;
Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir-forest
Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snow-flakes
Off the curdled sky.
Hark! the brave North-Easter!
Breast-high lies the scent,
On by holt and headland,
Over heath and bent!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Through the sleet and snow.
Who can override you?
Let the horses go!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Down the roaring blast;
You shall see a fox die
Ere an hour be past.
Go! and rest to-morrow,
Hunting in your dreams,
While our skates are ringing
O'er the frozen streams.
Let the luscious South-wind
Breathe in lovers' sighs,
While the lazy gallants
Bask in ladies' eyes. What does he but soften Heart alike and pen?
"Tis the hard grey weather
Breeds hard Englishmen.
What's the soft South-Wester?
'Tis the ladies' breeze,
Bringing home their true loves
Out of all the seas:
But the black North-Easter,
Through the snow-storms hurled,
Drives our English hearts of oak
Seaward round the world.
Come, as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,
Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.
Come; and strong within us
Stir the Vikings' blood;
Bracing brain and sinew;
Blow, thou wind of God!
AMID the loud ebriety of War,
With shouts of 'La République' and 'La Gloire,'
The Vengeur's crew, 'twas said, with flying flag
And broadside blazing level with the wave
Went down erect, defiant, to their grave
Beneath the sea! "Twas but a Frenchman's brag,
Yet Europe rang with it for many a year.
Now we recount no fable; Europe, hear!
And when they tell thee England is a fen
Corrupt, a kingdom tottering to decay,
'Her nerveless burghers lying an easy prey
'For the first comer,' tell how the other day
A crew of half a thousand Englishmen
Went down into the deep in Simon's Bay!
Not with the cheer of battle in the throat,
Or cannon-glare and din to stir their blood,
But, roused from dreams of home to find their boat
Fast sinking, mustered on the deck they stood,
Biding God's pleasure and their chief's com
Calm was the sea, but not less calm that band
Close ranged upon the poop, with bated breath
But flinching not though eye to eye with Death!
Heroes! Who were those heroes? Veterans
steeled
To face the King of Terrors 'mid the scaith
Of many a hurricane and trenched field?
Far other weavers from the stocking-frame;
Boys from the plough; cornets with beardless
chin,
But steeped in honour and in discipline!
Weep, Britain, for the Cape whose ill-starred
Long since divorced from Hope suggests but shame,
Disaster, and thy captains held at bay
By naked hordes; but as thou weepest, thank
Heaven for those undegenerate sons who sank
Aboard the Birkenhead in Simon's Bay!
WE come in arms, we stand ten score,
Embattled on the Castle green;
We grasp our firelocks tight, for war
Is threatening, and we see our Queen.
And 'Will the churls last out till we
Have duly hardened bones and thews
For scouring leagues of swamp and sea
Of braggart mobs and corsair crews?'
We ask; we fear not scoff or smile
At meek attire of blue and grey,
For the proud wrath that thrills our isle
Gives faith and force to this array.
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