 | The Collected Poems of T. W. H. Crosland |  |
90
Post Prœlium
[Jutland]
I
Lovely, and mightily-thewedMother of this great brood,
Lo, the beatitude
Falls on thee like a flood,
And folds thee where thou'rt stood
Fronting the destinies
With comfortable eyes.
II
Now knowest thou the roseWhich to the sweet air blows
In thy fair garden-close,
And thine own lark that throws
Down music as he goes
Vaunting to heaven of thee,
Are not for the enemy.
91
III
Now knowest thou the maidOf her young joy unstayed,
And matrons who have said
Most secret prayers, afraid
To tell themselves they prayed—
In thy green land shall dwell
Safe and inviolable.
IV
Woodland and russet farm,And hamlet, and the warm
And goodly towns where swarm
Thy populations, Harm
Taketh not in her palm;
And never will they know
The tread of any foe.
V
For round thee is the sheerMight of the mariner
Whom thou didst suckle and rear
And give for the ships. No peer
Hath he to drive and steer
And fight till the last bells
The steely citadels.
92
VI
Now knowest thou the deepsOf a verity thine; nor sleeps
Nor fails the ward. Who leaps
For what thy Amireld keeps,
Soweth a wind, and reaps
The whirlwind from thy guns,
The lightning from thy sons.
VII
Blessèd art thou that sentThese to be strawne and spent;
And blessèd they that went,
Singing with heart's content,
Unto the sacrament;
And blessèd they that mourn
Whoso shall not return.
| The Collected Poems of T. W. H. Crosland | |