Collected Poems: Volume One

Sleep, little baby, I love thee.
Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee.
How should I know what to sing
Here in my arms as I swing thee to sleep?
Hushaby low,
Rockaby so,
Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring,
Mother has only a kiss for her king!
Why should my singing so make me to weep?
Only I know that I love thee, I love thee,
Love thee, my little one, sleep.

Is it a dream? Ah yet, it seems
Not the same as other dreams!
I can but think that angels sang,
When thou wast born, in the starry sky,
And that their golden harps out-rang
While the silver clouds went by!

The morning sun shuts out the stars,
Which are much loftier than the sun;
But, could we burst our prison-bars
And find the Light whence light begun,
The dreams that heralded thy birth
Were truer than the truths of earth;
And, by that far immortal Gleam,
Soul of my soul, I still would dream!

A ring of light was round thy head,
The great-eyed oxen nigh thy bed
Their cold and innocent noses bowed!
Their sweet breath rose like an incense cloud
In the blurred and mystic lanthorn light.

About the middle of the night
The black door blazed like some great star
With a glory from afar,
Or like some mighty chrysolite
Wherein an angel stood with white
Blinding arrowy bladed wings
Before the throne of the King of kings;
And, through it, I could dimly see
A great steed tethered to a tree.

Then, with crimson gems aflame
Through the door the three kings came,
And the black Ethiop unrolled
The richly broidered cloth of gold,
And pourèd forth before thee there
Gold and frankincense and myrrh!

III

See, what a wonderful smile! Does it mean
That my little one knows of my love?
Was it meant for an angel that passed unseen,
And smiled at us both from above?
Does it mean that he knows of the birds and the flowers
That are waiting to sweeten his childhood's hours,
And the tales I shall tell and the games he will play,
And the songs we shall sing and the prayers we shall pray
In his boyhood's May,
He and I, one day?

For in the warm blue summer weather
We shall laugh and love together:
I shall watch my baby growing,
I shall guide his feet,
When the orange trees are blowing
And the winds are heavy and sweet!

When the orange orchards whiten
I shall see his great eyes brighten
To watch the long-legged camels going
Up the twisted street,
When the orange trees are blowing
And the winds are sweet.

What does it mean? Indeed, it seems
A dream! Yet not like other dreams!

We shall walk in pleasant vales,
Listening to the shepherd's song
I shall tell him lovely tales
All day long:
He shall laugh while mother sings
Tales of fishermen and kings.

He shall see them come and go
O'er the wistful sea,
Where rosy oleanders blow
Round blue Lake Galilee,
Kings with fishers' ragged coats
And silver nets across their boats,
Dipping through the starry glow,
With crowns for him and me!
Ah, no;
Crowns for him, not me!

Rockaby so! Indeed, it seems
A dream! Yet not like other dreams!

Ah, see what a wonderful smile again!
Shall I hide it away in my heart,
To remember one day in a world of pain
When the years have torn us apart,
Little babe,
When the years have torn us apart?

Sleep, my little one, sleep,
Child with the wonderful eyes,
Wild miraculous eyes,
Deep as the skies are deep!
What star-bright glory of tears
Waits in you now for the years
That shall bid you waken and weep?
Ah, in that day, could I kiss you to sleep
Then, little lips, little eyes,
Little lips that are lovely and wise,
Little lips that are dreadful and wise!

Clenched little hands like crumpled roses
Dimpled and dear,
Feet like flowers that the dawn uncloses,
What do I fear?
Little hands, will you ever be clenched in anguish?
White little limbs, will you droop and languish?
Nay, what do I hear?
I hear a shouting, far away,
You shall ride on a kingly palm-strewn way
Some day!

But when you are crowned with a golden crown
And throned on a golden throne,
You'll forget the manger of Bethlehem town
And your mother that sits alone

Wondering whether the mighty king
Remembers a song she used to sing,
Long ago,
"Rockaby so,
Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring,
Mother has only a kiss for her king!"...

Ah, see what a wonderful smile, once more!
He opens his great dark eyes!
Little child, little king, nay, hush, it is o'er
My fear of those deep twin skies,—
Little child,
You are all too dreadful and wise!

VII

But now you are mine, all mine,
And your feet can lie in my hand so small,
And your tiny hands in my heart can twine,
And you cannot walk, so you never shall fall,
Or be pierced by the thorns beside the door,
Or the nails that lie upon Joseph's floor;
Through sun and rain, through shadow and shine,
You are mine, all mine!

ENCELADUS

In the Black Country, from a little window,
Before I slept, across the haggard wastes
Of dust and ashes, I saw Titanic shafts
Like shadowy columns of wan-hope arise
To waste, on the blear sky, their slow sad wreaths
Of smoke, their infinitely sad slow prayers.
Then, as night deepened, the blast-furnaces,
Red smears upon the sulphurous blackness, turned
All that sad region to a City of Dis,
Where naked, sweating giants all night long
Bowed their strong necks, melted flesh, blood and bone,
To brim the dry ducts of the gods of gloom
With terrible rivers, branches of living gold.

O, like some tragic gesture of great souls
In agony, those awful columns towered
Against the clouds, that city of ash and slag
Assumed the grandeur of some direr Thebes
Arising to the death-chant of those gods,
A dreadful Order climbing from the dark
Of Chaos and Corruption, threatening to take
Heaven with its vast slow storm.
I slept, and dreamed.
And like the slow beats of some Titan heart
Buried beneath immeasurable woes,
The forging-hammers thudded through the dream:

Huge on a fallen tree,
Lost in the darkness of primeval woods,
Enceladus, earth-born Enceladus,
The naked giant, brooded all alone.
Born of the lower earth, he knew not how,
Born of the mire and clay, he knew not when,
Brought forth in darkness, and he knew not why!

Thus, like a wind, went by a thousand years.

Anhungered, yet no comrade of the wolf,
And cold, but with no power upon the sun,
A master of this world that mastered him!

Thus, like a cloud, went by a thousand years.

Who chained this other giant in his heart
That heaved and burned like Etna? Heavily
He bent his brows and wondered and was dumb.

And, like one wave, a thousand years went by.

He raised his matted head and scanned the stars.
He stood erect! He lifted his uncouth arms!
With inarticulate sounds his uncouth lips
Wrestled and strove—I am full-fed, and yet
I hunger!
Who set this fiercer famine in my maw?

Can I eat moons, gorge on the Milky Way,
Swill sunsets down, or sup the wash of the dawn
Out of the rolling swine-troughs of the sea?
Can I drink oceans, lie beneath the mountains,
And nuzzle their heavy boulders like a cub
Sucking the dark teats of the tigress? Who,
Who set this deeper hunger in my heart?
And the dark forest echoed—Who? Ah, who?

"I hunger!"
And the night-wind answered him,
"Hunt, then, for food."

"I hunger!"
And the sleek gorged lioness
Drew nigh him, dripping freshly from the kill,
Redder her lolling tongue, whiter her fangs,
And gazed with ignorant eyes of golden flame.

"I hunger!"
Like a breaking sea his cry
Swept through the night. Against his swarthy knees
She rubbed the red wet velvet of her ears
With mellow thunders of unweeting bliss,
Purring—Ah, seek, and you shall find.
Ah, seek, and you shall slaughter, gorge, ah seek,
Seek, seek, you shall feed full, ah seek, ah seek.

Enceladus, earth-born Enceladus,
Bewildered like a desert-pilgrim, saw
A rosy City, opening in the clouds,
The hunger-born mirage of his own heart,
Far, far above the world, a home of gods,
Where One, a goddess, veiled in the sleek waves
Of her deep hair, yet glimmering golden through,
Lifted, with radiant arms, ambrosial food
For hunger such as this! Up the dark hills,
He rushed, a thunder-cloud,
Urged by the famine of his heart. He stood
High on the topmost crags, he hailed the gods
In thunder, and the clouds re-echoed it!

He hailed the gods!
And like a sea of thunder round their thrones
Washing, a midnight sea, his earth-born voice
Besieged the halls of heaven! He hailed the gods!
They laughed, he heard them laugh!
With echo and re-echo, far and wide,
A golden sea of mockery, they laughed!

Enceladus, earth-born Enceladus,
Laid hold upon the rosy Gates of Heaven,
And shook them with gigantic sooty hands,
Asking he knew not what, but not for alms;
And the Gates, opened as in jest;
And, like a sooty jest, he stumbled in.

Round him the gods, the young and scornful gods,
Clustered and laughed to mark the ravaged face,
The brutal brows, the deep and dog-like eyes,
The blunt black nails, and back with burdens bowed.
And, when they laughed, he snarled with uncouth lips
And made them laugh again.
"Whence comest thou?"
He could not speak!
How should he speak whose heart within him heaved
And burned like Etna? Through his mouth there came
A sound of ice-bergs in a frozen sea
Of tears, a sullen region of black ice
Rending and breaking, very far away.
They laughed!
He stared at them, bewildered, and they laughed
Again, "Whence comest thou?"

He could not speak!
But through his mouth a moan of midnight woods,
Where wild beasts lay in wait to slaughter and gorge,
A moan of forest-caverns where the wolf
Brought forth her litter, a moan of the wild earth
In travail with strange shapes of mire and clay,
Creatures of clay, clay images of the gods,
That hungered like the gods, the most high gods,
But found no food, and perished like the beasts.

And the gods laughed,—
Art thou, then, such a god? And, like a leaf
Unfolding in dark woods, in his deep brain
A sudden memory woke; and like an ape
He nodded, and all heaven with laughter rocked,
While Artemis cried out with scornful lips,—
Perchance He is the Maker of you all!

Then, piteously outstretching calloused hands,
He sank upon his knees, his huge gnarled knees,
And echoed, falteringly, with slow harsh tongue,—
Perchance, perchance, the Maker of you all.

They wept with laughter! And Aphrodite, she,
With keener mockery than white Artemis
Who smiled aloof, drew nigh him unabashed
In all her blinding beauty. Carelessly,
As o'er the brute brows of a stallèd ox
Across that sooty muzzle and brawny breast,
Contemptuously, she swept her golden hair
In one deep wave, a many-millioned scourge
Intolerable and beautiful as fire;
Then turned and left him, reeling, gasping, dumb,
While heaven re-echoed and re-echoed, See,
Perchance, perchance, the Maker of us all!

Enceladus, earth-born Enceladus,
Rose to his feet, and with one terrible cry
"I hunger," rushed upon the scornful gods
And strove to seize and hold them with his hands,
And still the laughter deepened as they rolled
Their clouds around them, baffling him. But once,
Once with a shout, in his gigantic arms
He crushed a slippery splendour on his breast
And felt on his harsh skin the cool smooth peaks
Of Aphrodite's bosom. One black hand
Slid down the naked snow of her long side
And bruised it where he held her. Then, like snow
Vanishing in a furnace, out of his arms
The splendour suddenly melted, and a roll
Of thunder split the dream, and headlong down He fell, from heaven to earth; while, overhead
The young and scornful gods—he heard them laugh!—
Toppled the crags down after him. He lay
Supine. They plucked up Etna by the roots
And buried him beneath it. His broad breast
Heaved, like that other giant in his heart,
And through the crater burst his fiery breath,
But could not burst his bonds. And so he lay
Breathing in agony thrice a thousand years.

Then came a Voice, he knew not whence, "Arise,
Enceladus!" And from his heart a crag
Fell, and one arm was free, and one thought free,
And suddenly he awoke, and stood upright,
Shaking the mountains from him like a dream;
And the tremendous light and awful truth
Smote, like the dawn, upon his blinded eyes,
That out of his first wonder at the world,
Out of his own heart's deep humility,
And simple worship, he had fashioned gods
Of cloud, and heaven out of a hollow shell.
And groping now no more in the empty space
Outward, but inward in his own deep heart,
He suddenly felt the secret gates of heaven
Open, and from the infinite heavens of hope
Inward, a voice, from the innermost courts of Love,
Rang—Thou shall have none other gods but Me.

Enceladus, the foul Enceladus,
When the clear light out of that inward heaven
Whose gates are only inward in the soul,
Showed him that one true Kingdom, said,
"I will stretch
My hands out once again. And, as the God
That made me is the Heart within my heart,
So shall my heart be to this dust and earth
A god and a creator. I will strive
With mountains, fires and seas, wrestle and strive,
Fashion and make, and that which I have made
In anguish I shall love as God loves me."

In the Black Country, from a little window,
Waking at dawn, I saw those giant Shafts
—O great dark word out of our elder speech,
Long since the poor man's kingly heritage—
The Shapings, the dim Sceptres of Creation,
The Shafts like columns of wan-hope arise
To waste, on the blear sky, their slow sad wreaths
Of smoke, their infinitely sad slow prayers.
Then, as the dawn crimsoned, the sordid clouds,
The puddling furnaces, the mounds of slag,
The cinders, and the sand-beds and the rows
Of wretched roofs, assumed a majesty
Beyond all majesties of earth or air;
Beauty beyond all beauty, as of a child
In rags, upraised thro' the still gold of heaven,
With wasted arms and hungering eyes, to bring
The armoured seraphim down upon their knees
And teach eternal God humility;
The solemn beauty of the unfulfilled
Moving towards fulfilment on a height
Beyond all heights; the dreadful beauty of hope;
The naked wrestler struggling from the rock
Under the sculptor's chisel; the rough mass
Of clay more glorious for the poor blind face
And bosom that half emerge into the light,
More glorious and august, even in defeat,
Than that too cold dominion God foreswore
To bear this passionate universal load,
This Calvary of Creation, with mankind.

IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING

In the cool of the evening, when the low sweet whispers waken,
When the labourers turn them homeward, and the weary have their will,
When the censers of the roses o'er the forest-aisles are shaken,
Is it but the wind that cometh o'er the far green hill?

For they say 'tis but the sunset winds that wander through the heather,
Rustle all the meadow-grass and bend the dewy fern;
They say 'tis but the winds that bow the reeds in prayer together,
And fill the shaken pools with fire along the shadowy burn.

III

In the beauty of the twilight, in the Garden that He loveth,
They have veiled His lovely vesture with the darkness of a name!
Thro' His Garden, thro' His Garden it is but the wind that moveth,
No more; but O, the miracle, the miracle is the same!

In the cool of the evening, when the sky is an old story
Slowly dying, but remembered, ay, and loved with passion still,
Hush!... the fringes of His garment, in the fading golden glory,
Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far green hill.

A ROUNDHEAD'S RALLYING SONG

How beautiful is the battle,
How splendid are the spears,
When our banner is the sky
And our watchword Liberty,
And our kingdom lifted high above the years.

How purple shall our blood be,
How glorious our scars,
When we lie there in the night
With our faces full of light
And the death upon them smiling at the stars.

III

How golden is our hauberk,
And steel, and steel our sword,
And our shield without a stain
As we take the field again,
We whose armour is the armour of the Lord!

VICISTI, GALILÆE

"The shrines are dust, the gods are dead,"
They cried in ancient Rome!
"Ah yet, the Idalian rose is red,
And bright the Paphian foam:
For all your Galilæan tears
We turn to her," men say ...
But we, we hasten thro' the years
To our own yesterday.

Thro' all the thousand years ye need
To make the lost so fair,
Before ye can award His meed
Of perfect praise and prayer!
Ye liberated souls, the crown
Is yours; and yet, some few
Can hail, as this great Cross goes down
Its distant triumph, too.

Poor scornful Lilliputian souls,
And are ye still too proud
To risk your little aureoles
By kneeling with the crowd? Do ye still dream ye "stand alone"
So fearless and so strong?
To-day we claim the rebels' throne
And leave you with the throng.

Yes, He has conquered! You at least
The "van-guard" leaves behind
To croon old tales of king and priest
In the ingles of mankind:
The breast of Aphrodite glows,
Apollo's face is fair;
But O, the world's wide anguish knows
No Apollonian prayer.

Not ours to scorn the first white gleam
Of beauty on this earth,
The clouds of dawn, the nectarous dream,
The gods of simpler birth;
But, as ye praise them, your own cry
Is fraught with deeper pain,
And the Compassionate ye deny
Returns, returns again.

O, worshippers of the beautiful,
Is this the end then, this,—
That ye can only see the skull
Beneath the face of bliss?
No monk in the dark years ye scorn
So barren a pathway trod
As ye who, ceasing not to mourn,
Deny the mourner's God.

And, while ye scoff, on every side
Great hints of Him go by,—
Souls that are hourly crucified
On some new Calvary!
O, tortured faces, white and meek,
Half seen amidst the crowd,
Grey suffering lips that never speak,
The Glory in the Cloud!

In flower and dust, in chaff and grain,
He binds Himself and dies!
We live by His eternal pain,
His hourly sacrifice;
The limits of our mortal life
Are His. The whisper thrills
Under the sea's perpetual strife,
And through the sunburnt hills.

Darkly, as in a glass, our sight
Still gropes thro' Time and Space:
We cannot see the Light of Light
With angels, face to face:
Only the tale His martyrs tell
Around the dark earth rings
He died and He went down to hell
And lives—the King of Kings!

And, while ye scoff, from shore to shore,
From sea to moaning sea,
Eloi, Eloi, goes up once more
Lama sabacthani!
The heavens are like a scroll unfurled,
The writing flames above—
This is the King of all the world
Upon His Cross of Love.

DRAKE

DEDICATED TO RUDOLPH CHAMBERS LEHMANN

PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN EDITION

England, my mother,
Lift to my western sweetheart
One full cup of English mead, breathing of the may!
Pledge the may-flower in her face that you and ah, none other,
Sent her from the mother-land
Across the dashing spray.

Hers and yours the story:
Think of it, oh, think of it—
That immortal dream when El Dorado flushed the skies!
Fill the beaker full and drink to Drake's undying glory,
Yours and hers (Oh, drink of it!)
The dream that never dies.

III

Yours and hers the free-men
Who scanned the stars and westward sung
When a king commanded and the Atlantic thundered "Nay!"
Hers as yours the pride is, for Drake our first of seamen
First upon his bow-sprit hung
That bunch of English may.

Pledge her deep, my mother;
Through her veins thy life-stream runs!
Spare a thought, too, sweetheart, for my mother o'er the sea!
Younger eyes are yours; but ah, those old eyes and none other
Once bedewed the may-flower; once,
As yours, were clear and free.

Once! Nay, now as ever
Beats within her ancient heart
All the faith that took you forth to seek your heaven alone:
Shadows come and go; but let no shade of doubt dissever,
Cloak, or cloud, or keep apart
Two souls whose prayer is one.

Sweetheart, ah, be tender—
Tender with her prayer to-night!
Such a goal might yet be ours!—the battle-flags be furled,
All the wars of earth be crushed, if only now your slender
Hand should grasp her gnarled old hand
And federate the world.

VII

Foolish it may seem, sweet!
Still the battle thunder lours:
Darker look the Dreadnoughts as old Europe goes her way!
Yet your hand, your hand, has power to crush that evil dream, sweet;
You, with younger eyes than ours
And brows of English may.

VIII

If a singer cherishes
Idle dreams or idle words,
You shall judge—and you'll forgive: for, far away or nigh,
Still abides that Vision without which a people perishes:
Love will strike the atoning chords!
Hark—there comes a cry!

Over all this earth, sweet,
The poor and weak look up to you—
Lift their burdened shoulders, stretch their fettered hands in prayer:
You, with gentle hands, can bring the world-wide dream to birth, sweet,
While I lift this cup to you
And wonder—will she care?

Kindle, eyes, and beat, heart!
Hold the brimming breaker up!
All the may is burgeoning from East to golden West!
England, my mother, greet America, my sweetheart:
—Ah, but ere I drained the cup
I found her on your breast.

EXORDIUM

When on the highest ridge of that strange land,
Under the cloudless blinding tropic blue,
Drake and his band of swarthy seamen stood
With dazed eyes gazing round them, emerald fans
Of palm that fell like fountains over cliffs
Of gorgeous red anana bloom obscured
Their sight on every side. Illustrious gleams
Of rose and green and gold streamed from the plumes
That flashed like living rainbows through the glades.
Piratic glints of musketoon and sword,
The scarlet scarves around the tawny throats,
The bright gold ear-rings in the sun-black ears,
And the calm faces of the negro guides
Opposed their barbarous bravery to the noon;
Yet a deep silence dreadfully besieged
Even those mighty hearts upon the verge
Of the undiscovered world. Behind them lay The old earth they knew. In front they could not see
What lay beyond the ridge. Only they heard
Cries of the painted birds troubling the heat
And shivering through the woods; till Francis Drake
Plunged through the hush, took hold upon a tree,
The tallest near them, and clomb upward, branch
By branch.
And there, as he swung clear above
The steep-down forest, on his wondering eyes,
Mile upon mile of rugged shimmering gold,
Burst the unknown immeasurable sea.
Then he descended; and with a new voice
Vowed that, God helping, he would one day plough
Those virgin waters with an English keel.

So here before the unattempted task,
Above the Golden Ocean of my dream
I clomb and saw in splendid pageant pass
The wild adventures and heroic deeds
Of England's epic age, a vision lit
With mighty prophecies, fraught with a doom
Worthy the great Homeric roll of song,
Yet all unsung and unrecorded quite
By those who might have touched with Raphael's hand
The large imperial legend of our race,
Ere it brought forth the braggarts of an hour,
Self-worshippers who love their imaged strength,
And as a symbol for their own proud selves
Misuse the sacred name of this dear land,
While England to the Empire of her soul
Like some great Prophet passes through the crowd
That cannot understand; for he must climb
Up to that sovran thunder-smitten peak
Where he shall grave and trench on adamant
The Law that God shall utter by the still
Small voice, not by the whirlwind or the fire.
There labouring for the Highest in himself
He shall achieve the good of all mankind;
And from that lonely Sinai shall return
Triumphant o'er the little gods of gold
That rule their little hour upon the plain.

Oh, thou blind master of these opened eyes
Be near me, therefore, now; for not in pride
I lift lame hands to this imperious theme;
But yearning to a power above mine own
Even as a man might lift his hands in prayer.
Or as a child, perchance, in those dark days
When London lay beleaguered and the axe
Flashed out for a bigot empire; and the blood
Of martyrs made a purple path for Spain
Up to the throne of Mary; as a child
Gathering with friends upon a winter's morn
For some mock fight between the hateful prince
Philip and Thomas Wyatt, all at once
Might see in gorgeous ruffs embastioned
Popinjay plumes and slouching hats of Spain,
Gay shimmering silks and rich encrusted gems,
Gold collars, rare brocades, and sleek trunk-hose
The Ambassador and peacock courtiers come
Strutting along the white snow-strangled street,
A walking plot of scarlet Spanish flowers,
And with one cry a hundred boyish hands
Put them to flight with snowballs, while the wind
All round their Spanish ears hissed like a flight
Of white-winged geese; so may I wage perchance
A mimic war with all my heart in it,
Munitioned with mere perishable snow
Which mightier hands one day will urge with steel.
Yet may they still remember me as I
Remember, with one little laugh of love,
That child's game, this were wealth enough for me.

Mother and love, fair England, hear my prayer;
Help me that I may tell the enduring tale
Of that great seaman, good at need, who first
Sailed round this globe and made one little isle,
One little isle against that huge Empire
Of Spain whose might was paramount on earth,
O'ertopping Babylon, Nineveh, Greece, and Rome,
Carthage and all huge Empires of the past,
He made this little isle, against the world, Queen of the earth and sea. Nor this alone
The theme; for, in a mightier strife engaged
Even than he knew, he fought for the new faiths,
Championing our manhood as it rose
And cast its feudal chains before the seat
Of kings; nay, in a mightier battle yet
He fought for the soul's freedom, fought the fight
Which, though it still rings in our wondering ears,
Was won then and for ever—that great war,
That last Crusade of Christ against His priests,
Wherein Spain fell behind a thunderous roar
Of ocean triumph over burning ships
And shattered fleets, while England, England rose,
Her white cliffs laughing out across the waves,
Victorious over all her enemies.

And while he won the world for her domain,
Her loins brought forth, her fostering bosom fed
Souls that have swept the spiritual seas
From heaven to hell, and justified her crown.
For round the throne of great Elizabeth
Spenser and Burleigh, Sidney and Verulam,
Clustered like stars, rare Jonson like the crown
Of Cassiopeia, Marlowe ruddy as Mars,
And over all those mighty hearts arose
The soul of Shakespeare brooding far and wide
Beyond our small horizons, like a light
Thrown from a vaster sun that still illumes
Tracts which the arc of our increasing day
Must still leave undiscovered, unexplored.

Mother and love, fair England, hear my prayer,
As thou didst touch the heart and light the flame
Of wonder in those eyes which first awoke
To beauty and the sea's adventurous dream
Three hundred years ago, three hundred years,
And five long decades, in the leafy lanes
Of Devon, where the tallest trees that bore
The raven's matted nest had yielded up Their booty, while the perilous branches swayed
Beneath the boyish privateer, the king
Of many young companions, Francis Drake;
So hear me, and so help, for more than his
My need is, even than when he first set sail
Upon that wild adventure with three ships
And three-score men from grey old Plymouth Sound,
Not knowing if he went to life or death,
Not caring greatly, so that he were true
To his own sleepless and unfaltering soul
Which could not choose but hear the ringing call
Across the splendours of the Spanish Main
From ever fading, ever new horizons,
And shores beyond the sunset and the sea.

Mother and sweetheart, England; from whose breast,
With all the world before them, they went forth,
Thy seamen, o'er the wide uncharted waste,
Wider than that Ulysses roamed of old,
Even as the wine-dark Mediterranean
Is wider than some wave-relinquished pool
Among its rocks, yet none the less explored
To greater ends than all the pride of Greece
And pomp of Rome achieved; if my poor song
Now spread too wide a sail, forgive thy son
And lover, for thy love was ever wont
To lift men up in pride above themselves
To do great deeds which of themselves alone
They could not; thou hast led the unfaltering feet
Of even thy meanest heroes down to death,
Lifted poor knights to many a great emprise,
Taught them high thoughts, and though they kept their souls
Lowly as little children, bidden them lift
Eyes unappalled by all the myriad stars
That wheel around the great white throne of God.