es, never the wild-fowl wake.
But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England's sake--
Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid--
Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed.

The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows,
The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare,
Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!'

The West Wind called:--'In squadrons the thoughtless galleons fly
That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die.
They make my might their porter, they make my house their path,
And I loose my neck from their service and whelm them all in my wrath.

I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole,
They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll:
For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath,
And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death.

But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day
I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away,
First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky,
Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by.

The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it--the frozen dews have kissed--
The morning stars have hailed it, a fellow-star in the mist.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare,
Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!'

_Kipling._

NOTES

I

This descant upon one of the most glorious feats of arms that
even England has achieved is selected and pieced together from
the magnificent verse assigned to the Chorus--'_Enter RUMOUR
painted full of tongues_'--to _King Henry V._, the noble piece of
pageantry produced in 1598, and a famous number from the _Poems
Lyrick and Pastorall_ (_circ._ 1605) of Michael Drayton. 'Look,'
says Ben Jonson, in his _Vision on the Muses of his Friend,
Michael Drayton_:--

Look how we read the Spartans were inflamed
With bold Tyrtaeus' verse; when thou art named
So shall our English youths urge on, and cry
An AGINCOURT! an AGINCOURT! or die.

This, it is true, was in respect of another _Agincourt_, but
we need not hesitate to appropriate it to our own: in respect
of which--'To the Cambro-Britons and their Harp, His _Ballad
of Aginc