my,
He's coming, tho' he hasn't yet a name.
Keel to keel and gun to gun he'll challenge us
To meet him at the Great Armada game.
None knows what may be the end of it,
But we'll all give our bodies and our souls
To see the little Admiral a-playing him
A rubber of the old Long Bowls!

_Stand by, etc._

{9}

V

_The Song of the Guns at Sea_

Oh hear! Oh hear!
Across the sullen tide
Across the echoing dome horizon-wide
What pulse of fear
Beats with tremendous boom!
What call of instant doom,
With thunderstroke of terror and of pride,
With urgency that may not be denied,
Reverberates upon the heart's own drum
Come! . . . Come! . . . for thou must come!

Come forth, O Soul!
This is thy day of power.
This is the day and this the glorious hour
That was the goal
Of thy self-conquering strife.
The love of child and wife,
The fields of Earth and the wide ways of Thought--
Did not thy purpose count them all as nought
That in this moment thou thyself mayst give
And in thy country's life for ever live?

{10}

Therefore rejoice
That in thy passionate prime
Youth's nobler hope disdained the spoils of Time
And thine own choice
Fore-earned for thee this day.
Rejoice! rejoice to obey
In the great hour of life that men call Death
The beat that bids thee draw heroic breath,
Deep-throbbing till thy mortal heart be dumb
Come! . . . Come! . . . the time is come!

{11}

VI

_Farewell_

Mother, with unbowed head
Hear thou across the sea
The farewell of the dead,
The dead who died for thee.
Greet them again with tender words and grave,
For, saving thee, themselves they could not save.

To keep the house unharmed
Their fathers built so fair,
Deeming endurance armed
Better than brute despair,
They found the secret of the word that saith,
"Service is sweet, for all true life is death."

So greet thou well thy dead
Across the homeless sea,
And be thou comforted
Because they died for thee.
Far off they served, but now their deed is done
For evermore their life and thine are one.

{12}

_Ode for Trafalgar Day, 1905_

"Partial firing continued until 4.30, when a victory having been
reported to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B., and
Commander-in-Chief, he then died of his wound."--Log of the _Victory_,
October 21, 1805.

England!