er English hand
Helpful at need in English cause could grip an English brand.
To-day? Well, round our jutting cliffs, across our hollowing bays
Thicker the light-ship beacons flash, the lighthouse lanterns blaze.
From sweep to sweep, from steep to steep, our shores are starred with light,
Burning across the briny floods through the black mirk of night,
Forth-gleaming like the eyes of Hope, or like the fires of Home,
Upon the eager eyes of men far-straining o'er the foam.
Good! But how greatly less than good to fear, to think, to know
That inland England's less alert against a whelming foe
Than when bonfire and beacon flared mere flame of wood and pitch,
From Surrey hills to Skiddaw!
Science-dowered, serenely rich,
Safe in its snugly sheltered homes, our England lies at ease,
Whilst round her cliffs gale-scourged to wrath the tiger-throated seas
Thunder in ruthless ravening rage, with rending crash and shock,
Through the dull night and blinding drift on leagues of reef and rock.
More furious than the Spaniards they, more fierce, persistent foes,
These deep-gorged, pallid, foaming waves. Yes, bright the beacon glows,
Warmly the lighthouse wafts its blaze of welcome o'er the brine;
The shore's hard by, but where the hands to whirl the rescuing line?
To launch the boat?--to hurl the buoy? The lighthouse men look out
Upon their wreck-borne brethren there, their hearts are soft as stout,
But signals will not pierce this dark, shouts rise o'er this fierce roar,
Rescue may wait at hand, but--_there's no cable to the shore!_

Content with _this_? Nay, callous he whom this stirs not to rage,
_Punch_ pictures, with prophetic pen, a brighter cheerier page,
Which _must be turned_, and speedily:
Good Mr. PROSPERO BULL,
Your _Ariel_ is the Electric Sprite, DIBDIN, of pity full
For tempest-tost Poor JACK, descried a Cherub up aloft
Watch-keeping o'er his venturous life. That symbol, quoted oft,
Must find new form to fit the time. The _Ariel_ of the Spark
Must watch around our storm-lashed coast in tempest and in dark,
Guardian of homeward-bound Poor JACK, to spread the news of fear,
And tell him, battling with the storm, that rescuing hands, though near,
Are not made helpless in his hour of agonising need,
By ignorance that heeds not, and neglect that fails to heed.

[Footnote 1: MACAULAY's _Armada._]

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