For all the hearts of traitors ache with fear
When our great ships go forth, as heretofore,
Full-armed from the shore,--
And Boreas bounds exultant on the seas,
To bid the waves of these,--
The subject-waves of England and the Isles,--
Out-leap for miles and miles,
As loud as lions loosed on enemies!

VI.

Oh, may no mean surrender of the rights
Of our ancestral swords,
Which made our fathers pioneers and lords,
And victors in the fights,--
May no succession of the days and nights
Find us or ours at fault,
Or careless of our fame, our island-fame,
Our sea-begotten fame,--
And no true Briton halt
In his allegiance to the Victory-name
Which is the name we bow to in our thought,
Where English deeds are wrought,
In lands that love the languors of the sun,
And where the stars have sway,
And where the moon is marvelled at for hours!
The flags of nations are the ocean-flowers,
And ours the dearest, ours the brightest one,
That ever shimmered on the watery way
Which patriots call to mind
When they remember isles beyond the dawn
Where our sea-children dwell.
For there's no flag afloat upon the wind
Can wave so high, or show so fair a front,
Or gleam so proudly in the battle-brunt,
Or tell a tale of conquest half so well
As this we doat upon!

VII.

The storm is our ally, the raging sea
Is our adherent, and, to make us free,
A thousand times the full-tongued hurricane
Has bellowed forth its menace o'er the deep;
And when dissensions sleep,
When sleep the wrought-up rancours of the age
We shall again inscribe, and yet again,
On History's glowing page
The story of the flag,--
For 'twas our Nelson's flag
Which none in all the world shall put to shame,
Or vilify, or blame,--
The story of the glory of the flag
Which waved at Waterloo,
And was, from first to last, the symbol true
Of Wellington's pure fame!

VIII.

High, high the flag, for England's sake and ours,
Who know its vested powers,
And what it means, in war time, and in peace
When fierce dissensions cease,--
High, high the flag of England over all
Which nought but good befall!
High let it wave, in triumph, as a sign
Of Freedom's right divine,--
Its glorious folds out-fluttering in the gale,
Again to tell th