The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Germany must have a Navy of such strength that even for the strongest Naval Power, a war with her would involve such risks as to imperil its own supremacy.” —Preamble to the German Navy Act.

“Grave responsibilities rest upon any one who misleads our countrymen by encouraging them to continue in their belief that an invasion of these shores is impossible....It is my absolute belief that, without a military organization more adequate to the certain perils of the future, our Empire will fall from us and our power will pass away.” —Lord Roberts, speaking in the House of Lords, on Monday, November 23, 1908.

When the disconcerted Concert, with their instruments out of tune
Broke and scattered and vanished, came William's concert soon.
He grasped the hand of the Sultan, and his own from the grasp grew red:
“Lend me your valorous army, when the right time comes,” he said.

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“Lend me your strong-thewed army, for I follow my god Bismarck
And I send no Pomeranian to break his bones in the dark.
If ever to throttle England becomes my brotherly work,
I can throttle her best by the fingers of the woman-strangling Turk.

“I will build a fleet gigantic, I will wait till the moment due,
And when that hour approaches, friend, my hope is in you.”
So the Sultan Abdul Hamid and William the Crafty clinked
Red-stained glasses together, and each at the other winked.

Then came Turkey's youngsters, and they carried a great reform,
And they did it without bloodshed, but they roused in the West a storm.
For “What's to become of my Army, if the Young Turks change in a night?”
Wringing his hands, cried William: and he hated the dawning light.

Then the Emperor Francis Joseph, and a pitiful thing was this,

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Joined in the new base Concert, the concert of snakes that hiss.
For Herzegovina lured him, and the moral strife was brief:
An Emperor lied with an Emperor, a thief hitched on to a thief.

White-haired Francis Joseph!—Nay, not his was the fall.
Give the trickster's honours to strategist Aerenthal.
Bismarck, Metternich, taught him, and he learned his lesson well:
And when they cabled, he knew not that they cabled straight from hell.

Up with the Sultan's army! Down with the men who strive
That a newer nobler Turkey may conquer and grow and thrive!
Such was the Teuton's message, cynical, devilish, dark:
Worthy of statesman Satan, worthy of fiend Bismarck.

They were strong from warring with women,—like steel their muscles grew
As the babes and the younglings whimpered, and the wives and mothers flew.

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What an ally was the Sultan! What a host to be led
By Abdul in eagled helmet, or William in fez of red!

So this Dual Alliance prospered, till the Young Turks rose in the night
Loathing the blood-stained darkness, longing for dawn and light.
Their hearts yearned out towards England, the land no Hamid has trod:
But that was a stab for William, though he trusted in Bismarck's God.

Bismarck's God would be for him. He would bend and would hear
The Emperor apt at sermons, big with a godly fear.
So he prayed to God and Bismarck: and their Dual answer came,
Tongued like the flash of cannons, written in words of flame.

“Look to our Navy, William. That is the thing to do.
England is old and weary, and the world is sick of her too.
England was always a braggart: but she took three years to beat
A handful of Boers in their kopjes. William, strengthen the fleet.”

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So he hearkened to Bismarck pleading, and he never thought it odd
That behind the cuirassed German stood a cloven-footed God.
He knew not the God of England, for Christ smiles full in His gaze
And He guides the sons of England, if England walks in His ways.

Then to the West turned William, and his naval instincts grew:
Wherever he turned that tattered old flag of Britain flew.
“Pile up our naval programmes! On with the ships!” said he.
“Soon we shall hustle England. Leave but the job to me.”

So the Navy Bills kept passing, and the big preamble said
“On the heels of earth's mightiest Navy we intend ere long to tread!”
“The prize is vast,” thought William—“the love of the soul of the sea:
The waves that fought for England may fight in the end for me.”

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Then at last the English hearkened, they awoke at last from sleep:
They heard the taunts of the giant, and his gibes at last sank deep.
Men and women wakened, and the soul of the sea once more
Spake to the soul of the nation, and it listened as heretofore—

“Be the cost what it may be, be the toil what it will,
Let England rule the waters with a mastering Navy still.
Long enough has the German vaunted, let him build till his shipyards quake,
Let him strain till his sinews splinter—he will never overtake.”

All the nation united, as a nation at last was heard;
And our inner strifes were forgotten, and one was the loyal word.
Let the German sweat and struggle till his blood-shot eyes grow dim:
Not for him is the ocean, her passion is not for him.

Our women were all divided: strange tastes and luxuries grew:

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But they heard the big preamble, and they understood and knew
It was not a question of voting. Nay, they voted all alike.
Every vote was a sword-stroke, though need was never to strike.

The women whom Shakespeare drew for us, hearts of love and of flame,
When the German big preamble and the German challenge came,
Ceased to contend for trifles. What was the suffrage worth
If nothing was left to vote for, with England wiped from the earth?

So in the year one thousand nine hundred and nine, men saw
With passion and deep emotion, with the old delight and awe,
The soul of the sea brought closer, for ever face to face
With the conquering Anglo-Saxon, the one sea-conquering race.

For the Power that sways the ocean, can sway the lands as well:
Can lift all earth to a heaven, or sink all earth to a hell.

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If the moustached German giant sways mankind, which will it be?
Militant force on the mainland: flames of hell on the sea.

Be not a moment in error: misjudge, mistake not at all.
Britain rules for freedom—if the British Power should fall,
If the Power that pocketed Alsace gets our Colonies well in his grip,
Freedom means violation, a kiss with a fang in the lip.

If compulsory service follows on the trumpet-call to the race
Blown by our foremost soldiers, that is little indeed to face.
Better compulsory service for the sake of the well-loved land
Than a slave's compulsory service, and cuffs from a master's hand.

Think not our enemies loiter: their chiefest end is in view.
Englishmen, Englishwomen, the centuries waited for you.
Yours is the word of the ages: for you the choice that will make
England the arbiter ever, England alert and awake.

Choose, for the moment presses. Choose, for the hour draws nigh.

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Keep the command of the ocean, live then—lose it, and die.
Life and death are in balance: heaven and hell draw swords.
But the casting-vote for ever will rest with the wild sea's lords.

When the proud-sailed old Armada steered straight for the Cornish coast
Our ships were manned by seamen, each strong man good as a host.
But the wide-winged storm fought for us, the soul of the sea was aflame,
And we know the word of destruction that forth on the storm-wind came.

Again and again for England the soul of the sea has fought
And far in advance for England lie triumphs beyond all thought:
Triumphs of Art and Science, wonders that no man knows;
Light in the streams of the sunshine, love in the heart of the rose.

But we need the strong straight sword-arm, or Science will speak in vain;
And love in the hearts of our women is nought but a grief or a pain

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If the virile guns can speak not, when the masterful moment comes,
With the roar of unleashed lions, that chimes to the roll of the drums.

In Africa God was with us, and a thousand blunders He
Watched but to overrule them, for He loves the soul of the sea:
And the soul of the sea prayed for us, and the sea's great Maker heard
The sob in her passionate waters, the sea's strange glorious word.

The sea's soul interceded, for the sea loved Nelson well:
Time to learn was given us, and we passed through Africa's hell,
And we bent to our work in earnest, and we won the game at last.
But that was a mere school-lesson: Pretoria lies in the past.

If the German moustached giant and his iron-drilled legions came,
Think of the homes of England! Think of the leaping flame!
Remember the blaze of Bazeilles. “What a city to sack!”

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Cried Blücher, of old-world London—but he had no ships at his back.

If ever the English meadows and the English hillsides felt
The foot of the German giant, and the giant's foul blow dealt,
Never would horror greater have changed the land to a grave,
For the soul of an English woman is not the soul of a slave.

Therefore be wise, be ready.—Countrymen, how would it be
If all our former battles, our wrestles by land and sea,
Waterloo, Trafalgar, Inkerman, all were mere
Lessons of infant schooling? How if the test is here?

How if the long strange story has come to a point at last
When the land must strike for Empire, or be but a kingdom past?
Rome and Greece sank downward, every dog has his day,—
Every country a splendour, a crown, a change, a decay.

Hear but the word of warning. Watch but the moments flee
With the stout hearts ready to landward, and the brave eyes keen by sea;

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And by land and sea the petition from men and women alike,
“God strike home for England, if the moment comes to strike!”

November, 1908.