My Lyrical Life :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Spaniard thought to wear our Crown,
Three hundred years ago;
And bow the head of England down
To kiss the Pope's great toe!
And next the Dutchman swept the Sea
With Besom top-mast high.
Gone is their Ocean sovereignty;
To-day, how low they lie!

And now the Frenchman's old wounds burn
Like devils in their pain,
And bode the weather of war will turn
To a bath of bloody rain.
Tingle and ring the ears of France
With sound of battle-hymns;
As on Ambition's dark, mad trance
The bloody vision swims.

Sons of the old Norse sailors brave,
We fill their place to-day,—
No wisp of foam upon the wave,
To flash and pass away.
Our perilous prize we guard and keep
Till last relief God brings,
Then lie in calm majestic sleep
Along with the old Sea Kings.

Well may your proud eyes sparkle, ye
Rough Sea-Kings, young and old;
The salt Sea-spirit laughs to see
The Frenchman grown so bold.
Sword-bayonets, Rifled Cannon, may
The poor of heart alarm,
But pluck at last will win the day
With naked strength of arm.

We are not beaten at a dash,
Nor swiftly overthrown,—
Let Ship with Ship together lash,
We know who must go down.
No man in Gallic land will live
To see us dispossessed;
When our sun sets at sea we give
Its glory to the West.

Those old unconquerable waves,
They mock at Tyranny;
And never can a land of Slaves
Be Ruler of the Sea.
But would you see their Empress, now
Behold her! here she smiles,
This Diadem on Ocean's brow;
This Glory of the Isles.

We have fed the Sea with English souls,
And every mounded wave
To Heaven bears witness, as it rolls
Some English seaman's grave!
Our Rivers carry heroic dust
For burial in the sea,
Which helps to keep our noble trust,
And battles for the Free.

Not always down the Primrose path
Of dalliance can we tread,
Oft-times the Chosen People hath
To climb with foot-prints red:
Our highest life with cross, and scorn,
And tears, may yet be trod,
And England wear a crown of thorn,
Whose Roses bloom in blood.

We have immortal quarrel with
The men who war with Right;
We will not own him kin or kith,
Who fails us in this fight.
No room for him on British ground,
No bed in Ocean's breast,
Who draws her purple curtains round
Unfathomable rest.

If those old Greeks for Beauty wrought
Their ten-years' daring deed,
Shall it be said that less we fought
For Freedom in her need?
No. Fight till all the Brave lie dead,
And grass grows on the mart;
But Freedom here shall rest her head
Upon our England's heart.

Like some old Eagle on her nest,
Up in her pride of place,
Our England sits with brooding breast,
And looks with sharpened face!
She feels the Shadow of a Hand,
But ere it touch her brood,
The Sea that narrows round our land
Shall run a moat of blood.

Wave out, Old Bird! or still brood on!
They shall not bring you low;
A thousand years have come and gone,
A thousand more shall go!
Our True Hearts still shall tread the deck,
Our Ships sail every sea,
And ride like those who rein the neck
Of rearing Tyranny.

We've mounted many a windy wave,
We've weathered many storms;
Unshaken still we hear them rave,
Safe in the Eternal arms.
For if the worst comes—every man—
We perish in our place,
And then our Conqueror, if he can,
May lead the new Sea-Race!

1860.