  Source.—Punch, December 14, 1861. (Reprinted by special permission of the proprietors of Punch.) Waiting for an Answer.1. Britannia waits an answer, sad and stern, Her weapons ready, but unsheathed they lie; In her deep eye, suppressed, the lightnings burn, Still the war-signal waits her word to fly. 2. Wrong has been done that flag whose stainless folds Have carried freedom wheresoe’er they flew: She knows sharp words fit slaves and shrewish scolds, She but bids those who can, that wrong undo. 3. She has been patient; will be patient still. Who more than she knows war, its curse and woe? Harsh words, scant courtesy, loud-mouthed ill-will, She meets as rocks meet ocean’s fretful flow. 4. All war she knows drags horrors in its train, Whate’er the foes, the cause for which they stand; But worst of all the war that leaves the stain, Of brother’s blood upon a brother’s hand. 5. The war that brings two mighty powers in shock— Powers ’tween whom fair commerce shared her crown By kinship knit, and interest’s golden lock, One blood, one speech, one past, of old renown. 6. All this she feels, and therefore, sad of cheer, She waits an answer from across the sea: Yet hath her sadness no alloy of fear, No thought to count the cost what it may be. 7. Dishonour has no equipoise in gold, No equipoise in blood, in loss, in pain; Till they whom force has ta’en from ’neath the fold Of her proud flag, stand ’neath its fold again. 8. She waits in arms; and in her cause is safe. Not fearing war, yet hoping peace the end. Nor heeding those her mood who’d check or chafe: The Right she seeks, the Right God will defend. |
|
