University of Virginia Library

And so you hate us! You
Hate England—hate, hate, hate!
A bestial brewage, racked
Out of the pits and holes
Of foulness and deceit,
Riots in your unclean veins;
You burn, you rage, you choke
You spit and splutter hate
For England! . . . To the Russ,
Battering your Eastern doors,
You have a mind to turn
The blubbered other cheek;
The Gaul—your sweet old friend
And crony of your love—
For him, dear soul, white flags,
Garlands and pretty lures,
Doves, promises, desire
To load him with the half
Of that you filched away:
For Belgia, “bleeding hearts,”
Laments, regrets, “mild rule,”
Cheap headstones for her sons,
And for her daughters You—
That they may suage your lusts
And, by the fireless hearths
You have made desolate,
Be snugly brought to bed
Of further Attilas
And blonde Barabbases—
Lieges and “gun fodder”
For the top-heavy Dolt
Whom ye call Kaiser and Lord. . . .
Yea, holy are your eyes
And filled with kindly beams
For these and all the world:
On Turk and Pole and Boer,
Bulgar, American,
You smile your panderous smile—
But for the English—Hate!

And you will rend our Throat,
And you will bite our Heel,
And you will stamp us down:
You put an oath on bronze
(Not paper this time—bronze!
Which is not easily blown
On winds of treachery!)
You have made an oath of bronze,
An oath no wind may shake,
An oath for your sons and their sons
One foe and one alone—
ENGLAND! For England hate!
And hate and hate and hate!

How shall we hate you back
We who are England; we
Whose bugles round the world
Blow to the punctual dawns
And fail not; whose great ships
Traverse the seventy seas
And always are at home;
Who are too big, for hate,
Too careless and too fine,
Too tempered and too proud—
How shall we hate you back?
For when you see us whole
Our strength is an honest strength
And based on what we love;
And these be two things we love:
Honour, and our fair land—
Honour which is the crown
And jewel and lamp and light
Of them that are not clods;
And our fair English land
Peopled with forthright men
Who make no talk of God,
But fear Him in their hearts,
And fear nor hate, nor death
Nor the King's enemies;—
A land of blunt, brave men,
And blessed with memories
Of old and high renown;
Old Captains who beat forth
In lofty ships of war,
Tawny and tarred and proud,
Old Admirals, who sleep
Safe in the ancient deeps,
And dream for England still:
Oh, you shall stamp us down
When all the seas are red
With the good English blood,
And all the beaches white
With decent English bones,
And when our pleasant fields
Are hillocked with carrion flesh
That cries and cries to heaven
Of coward Englishmen,
And the white Yorkshire rose
Blushes for shame of us,
And her red sister-rose
Blanches for shame of us,
Then shall you stamp us down,
Then shall you suck the blood
Out of the English throats,
And tack this Isle of ours
On to your German wastes!
O haters, fools and blind
Go home and make dolls' eyes,
And silly little clocks,
And plaisters for our gout,
Wimples and crisping-pins!
For now the outraged stars
Have seen enough of you,
The silver moons are sick
That ye still blot the earth;
From icy, hidden peaks
And far-off fastnesses,
From chambers of the South
And in the unconquerable heart
Of England, ware and wake,
The tempest gathers up
That shall be flails for you,
And break you in your place
And scatter you like straw;
Instead of “Hate, hate, hate,”
You shall cry “Doom, doom, doom,”
And you shall wail and mourn,
With none to comfort you
But sprites of murdered babes,
And ghosts of women raped,
And wraiths of great slain men.