Free as the wind that leaps from out the North,
When storms are hurrying forth,
Up-springs the voice of England, trumpet-clear,
Which all the world shall hear,
As one may hear God’s thunder over-head,—
A voice that echoes through the sunset red,
And through the fiery portals of the morn
Where, day by day, the golden hours are born,—
A voice to urge the strengthening of the bands
That bind our Empire Lands
With such a love as none shall put to scorn!
They little know our England who deny
The claim we have, from zone to furthest zone,
To belt the beauteous earth,
And treat the clamorous ocean as our own
In all the measuring of its monstrous girth.
The tempest calls to us, and we reply;
And not, as cowards do, in under-tone!
The sun that sets for others sets no more
On Britain’s world-wide shore
Which all the tides of all the seas have known.
We have no lust of strife:
We seek no vile dissension for base ends;
Freedom and fame and England are old friends.
Yet, if our foes desire it, let them come,
Whate’er their numbers be!
They know the road to England, mile by mile,
And they shall learn, full soon, that strength nor guile
Will much avail them in an English sea;
We will not hurl them backward to the waves,—
We’ll give them graves!
’Tis much to be so honoured in the main,
And feel no further stain
Than one’s own blood outpoured in lieu of wine.
’Tis much to die in England, and for this
To win the sabre-kiss
Of some true man who deems his cause divine,
And loves his country well.
A foe may calmly dwell
In our sweet soil with daisies for his quilt,—
Their snows to hide his guilt,
And earth’s good warmth about him where he lies
Beyond the burden of all battle-cries,
And made half-English by his resting-place:—
God give him grace!
We love the sea,—the loud, the leaping sea,—
The rush and roar of waters—the thick foam,—
The sea-bird’s sudden cry,—
The gale that bends the lithe and towering masts
Of good ships bounding home,
That spread to the great sky
Exultant flags unmatched in their degree!
And ’tis a joy that lasts,
A joy that thrills the Briton to the soul
Who knows the nearest goal
To all he asks of fortune and of fame,
From dusk to dawn and dawn to sunset-flame.
He knows that he is free,
With all the freedom of the waves and winds
That have the storm in fee.
And this our glory still:—to bear the palm
In all true enterprise,
And everywhere, in tempest and in calm,
To front the future with unfearing eyes,
And sway the seas where our advancement lies,
With Freedom’s flag uplifted, and unfurled;
And this our rallying-cry, whate’er befall,
Goodwill to men, and peace throughout the world,
But England,—England,—England over all!
Eric Mackay.
