Sacred and profane love and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

IF THEY DARE!

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The following lyric was written at a memorable moment, a few years back, when the defensive spirit of the nation was suddenly roused to the highest pitch. It was not published, because it was thought it might aggravate mischievously the popular emotion. If it is now printed here, it is only as a contributory reminder to the English People that they live in the presence, not of a passing, but of a permanent menace, against which it is their bounden duty, since they cherish Peace and detest War, to guard by every resource at their command, alike on sea and on land.

I

Realm of ocean-guarded Peace,
Humming loom and grazing steer,
Farm, and forge, and woven fleece,
Happier, homelier, year by year,
Hark! athwart the wintry air,
Menace mutters, foemen glare:
Leave the shuttle, leave the share,
For the spear!

II

Envious of her world-wide race,
Goaded by the greed and hate
Of the hungry and the base
For the opulent and great,
“See,” they whisper, “did we band
All against Her, hand-in-hand,
We might bring that haughty Land
Face with Fate.”

III

Plotters insolent and vain,
Muster then your servile swarms.
Moated by the unbridged main,
We but laugh at such alarms.

Blinded braggarts, to forget
England old is England yet,
And can meet, as once She met,
World in arms.

IV

Come athwart the ocean's crest,
Mob and Monarch, crowd and Crown!
Slavish East, or shrilling West,
Come, and strike at her renown.
Madmen! by your threats inane
What is it ye hope to gain?
Think of France, think of Spain,
Smitten down!

V

Derelict on wind and wave,
Tossing with the tossing tide,
Crushed by ice-floe, tombed in cave,
See the Armada's pomp and pride:
Prince and Pontiff, Rome and Spain,
Leagued against Her, leagued in vain;
England and her mother-main
Side by side.

VI

Think of that self-sceptered King,
Cæsar not by birth but brain,
Who with arbitrary wing
Hovered over hill and plain:

Headlong from that haughty height
Forced to sue to England's might,
And accept, for eagle's flight,
Cage and chain!

VII

Still they cry, “She is alone,
And must truckle to our nod.”
What! with half the world her own!
What! still wielding Neptune's rod!
She is lonely as the breeze,
Lonely as the stars or seas,
Lone, unreachable as these,
Lone as God!

VIII

Let the bandits then deride
Loneliness they shall not share.
We are lonely, unallied,
As the lion in his lair.
Doubters, dastards, now be dumb:
Sound the clarion! Roll the drum!
Let them menace, let them come,
If they dare!