Songs of love and empire. Эдит НесбитЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Wherever the track of our English ships

      Lies white on the ocean foam,

      His name is sweet to our English lips

      As the names of the flowers at home;

      Wherever the heart of an English boy

      Grows big with a deed of worth,

      Such names as his name have begot the same,

      Such hearts will bring it to birth.

      They say that his England, grown tired and old,

      Lies drunk by her heavy hoard;

      They say her hands have the grasp of the gold

      But not the grip of the sword,

      That her robe of glory is rent and shred,

      And that winds of shame blow through:

      Speak for your England, O mighty Dead,

      In the deeds you would have her do!

      Small skill have we to fight with the pen

      Who fought with the sword of old,

      For the sword that is wielded of Englishmen

      Is as much as one hand can hold.

      Yet the pen and the tongue are safe to use,

      And the coward and the wise choose these;

      But fools and brave were our English crews

      When Nelson swept the seas.

      ’Tis the way of a statesman to fear and fret,

      To ponder and pause and plan,

      But the way of Nelson was better yet,

      For that was the way of a man;

      They would teach us smoothness, who once were rough,

      They have bidden us palter and pray,

      But the way of Nelson was good enough,

      For that was the fighting way.

      If Nelson’s England must stoop to bear

      What never honour should brook,

      In vain does the tomb of her hero wear

      The laurel his brow forsook;

      In vain was the speech from the lips of her guns,

      If now must her lips refrain;

      In vain has she made us, her living sons,

      Her dead have made her in vain.

      So here with your bays be the dear head crowned,

      Lay flowers where the dear dust lies,

      And wreathe his column with laurel round

      To point his fame to the skies;

      But the greenest laurel that ever grew

      Is the laurel that’s yet to win;

      Crowned with his laurels he waits for You

      To bring Your laurels in!