  [For purposes of recognition at night a small squadron of Elizabethan ships, crossing the Atlantic, adopted as a watchword the sentence: Before the world—was God.] They diced with Death. Their big sea-boots Were greased with blood. They swept the seas For England; and—we reap the fruits Of their heroic deviltries! Our creed is in the cold machine, The inhuman devildoms of brain, The bolt that splits the midnight main, Loosed at a lever's touch; the lean Torpedo; "Twenty Miles of Power"; The steel-clad Dreadnoughts' dark array! Yet ... we that keep the conning tower Are not so strong as they Whose watchword we disdain. They laughed at odds for England's sake! We count, yet cast our strength away. One Admiral with the soul of Drake Would break the fleets of hell to-day! Give us the splendid heavens of youth, Give us the banners of deathless flame, The ringing watchwords of their fame, The faith, the hope, the simple truth! Then shall the Deep indeed be swayed Through all its boundless breadth and length, Nor this proud England lean dismayed On twenty miles of strength, Or shrink from aught but shame. Pull out by night, O leave the shore And lighted streets of Plymouth town, Pull out into the Deep once more! There, in the night of their renown, Around our midget period; And the huge decks that Raleigh trod Over our petty darkness loom! Along the line the cry is passed From all their heaven-illumined spars, Clear as a bell, from mast to mast, It rings against the stars: Before the world—was God. |
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