The Years Between

Excerpt

THE ROWERS

1902

(When Germany proposed that England should help her in a naval demonstration to collect debts from Venezuela.)

The banked oars fell an hundred strong,
And backed and threshed and ground,
But bitter was the rowers' song
As they brought the war-boat round.
They had no heart for the rally and roar
That makes the whale-bath smoke—
When the great blades cleave and hold and leave
As one on the racing stroke.
They sang:—'What reckoning do you keep,
And steer her by what star,
If we come unscathed from the Southern deep
To be wrecked on a Baltic bar?
'Last night you swore our voyage was done,
But seaward still we go,
And you tell us now of a secret vow
You have made with an open foe!
'That we must lie off a lightless coast
And haul and back and veer,
At the will of the breed that have wronged us most
For a year and a year and a year!
'There was never a shame in Christendie
They laid not to our door—
And you say we must take the winter sea
And sail with them once more?
'Look South! The gale is scarce o'erpast
That stripped and laid us down,
When we stood forth but they stood fast
And prayed to see us drown
'Our dead they mocked are scarcely cold,
Our wounds are bleeding yet—
And you tell us now that our strength is sold
To help them press for a debt'
''Neath all the flags of all mankind
That use upon the seas,
Was there no other fleet to find
That you strike hands with these?
'Of evil times that men can choose
On evil fate to fall,
What brooding Judgment let you loose
To pick the worst of all?
'In sight of peace—from the Narrow Seas
O'er half the world to run—
With a cheated crew, to league anew
With the Goth and the shameless Hun!'

[Written for the gathering of survivors of the Indian Mutiny, Albert Hall, 1907.]

To-day, across our fathers' graves,
The astonished years reveal
The remnant of that desperate host
Which cleansed our East with steel.
Hail and farewell! We greet you here,
With tears that none will scorn—
O Keepers of the House of old,
Or ever we were born!
One service more we dare to ask—
Pray for us, heroes, pray,
That when Fate lays on us our task
We do not shame the Day!

THE DECLARATION OF LONDON

JUNE 29, 1911

('On the re-assembling of Parliament after the Coronation, the Government have no intention of allowing their followers to vote according to their convictions on the Declaration of London, but insist on a strictly party vote'—Daily Papers.)

We were all one heart and one race
When the Abbey trumpets blew.
For a moment's breathing-space
We had forgotten you
Now you return to your honoured place
Panting to shame us anew.
We have walked with the Ages dead—
With our Past alive and ablaze,
And you bid us pawn our honour for bread;
This day of all the days!
And you cannot wait till our guests are sped,
Or last week's wreath decays?
The light is still in our eyes
Of Faith and Gentlehood,
Of Service and Sacrifice,
And it does not match our mood,
To turn so soon to your treacheries
That starve our land of her food.
Our ears still carry the sound
Of our once Imperial seas,
Exultant after our King was crowned,
Beneath the sun and the breeze.
It is too early to have them bound
Or sold at your decrees.
Wait till the memory goes,
Wait till the visions fade,
We may betray in time, God knows,
But we would not have it said,
When you make report to our scornful foes,
That we kissed as we betrayed!

1912

('Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works; their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.'—Isaiah lix 6)

The dark eleventh hour
Draws on and sees us sold
To every evil power
We fought against of old....