Poems of To-Day: an Anthology. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.

        The moon is up: the stars are bright

          The wind is fresh and free!

        We're out to seek for gold to-night

          Across the silver sea!

        The world was growing grey and old:

          Break out the sails again!

        We're out to seek a Realm of Gold

          Beyond the Spanish Main.

        We're sick of all the cringing knees,

          The courtly smiles and lies!

        God, let Thy singing Channel breeze

          Lighten our hearts and eyes!

        Let love no more be bought and sold

          For earthly loss or gain;

        We're out to seek an Age of Gold

          Beyond the Spanish Main.

        Beyond the light of far Cathay,

          Beyond all mortal dreams,

        Beyond the reach of night and day

          Our El Dorado gleams,

        Revealing—as the skies unfold—

          A star without a stain,

        The Glory of the Gates of Gold

          Beyond the Spanish Main.

        Sitting at times over a hearth that burns

          With dull domestic glow,

        My thought, leaving the book, gratefully turns

          To you who planned it so.

        Not of the great only you deigned to tell—

          The stars by which we steer—

        But lights out of the night that flashed, and fell

          To night again, are here.

        Such as were those, dogs of an elder day,

          Who sacked the golden ports,

        And those later who dared grapple their prey

          Beneath the harbour forts:

        Some with flag at the fore, sweeping the world

          To find an equal fight,

        And some who joined war to their trade, and hurled

          Ships of the line in flight.

        Whether their fame centuries long should ring

          They cared not over-much,

        But cared greatly to serve God and the king,

          And keep the Nelson touch;

        And fought to build Britain above the tide

          Of wars and windy fate;

        And passed content, leaving to us the pride

          Of lives obscurely great.

        Fear? Yes . . . I heard you saying

        In an Oxford common-room

        Where the hearth-light's kindly raying

        Stript the empanelled walls of gloom,

        Silver groves of candles playing

        In the soft wine turned to bloom—

        At the word I see you now

        Blandly push the wine-boat's prow

        Round the mirror of that scored

        Yellow old mahogany board—

        I confess to one fear! this,

      To be buried alive!

              My Lord,

        Your fancy has played amiss.

        Fear not. When in farewell

        While guns toll like a bell

        And the bell tolls like a gun

        Westminster towers call

        Folk and state to your funeral,

        And robed in honours won,

        Beneath the cloudy pall

        Of the lifted shreds of glory

        You lie in the last stall

        Of that grey dormitory—

        Fear not lest mad mischance

        Should find you lapt and shrouded

        Alive in helpless trance

        Though seeming death-beclouded:

        For long ere so you rest

        On that transcendent bier

        Shall we not have addressed

        One summons, one last test,

        To your reluctant ear?

        O believe it! we shall have uttered

        In ultimate entreaty

        A name your soul would hear

        Howsoever thickly shuttered;

        We shall have stooped and muttered

        England! in your cold ear. . . .

        Then, if your great pulse leap

        No more, nor your cheek burn,

        Enough; then shall we learn

        'Tis time for us to weep.

        "Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end,

          Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead;

        What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"

          "Blood for our blood," they said.

        He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five,

          I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:

        I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."

          "You shall die at dawn," said they.

        He flung his empty revolver down the slope,

          He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;

        All night long in a dream untroubled of hope

          He brooded, clasping his knees.

        He