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Title: The Sailor-King
Author: Alfred Noyes [
More Titles by Noyes]
The fleet, the fleet puts out to sea
In a thunder of blinding foam to-night,
With a bursting wreck-strewn reef to lee,
But--a seaman fired yon beacon-light!
Seamen hailing a seaman, know--
Free-men crowning a free-man, sing--
The worth of that light where the great ships go,
The signal-fire of the king.
Cloud and wind may shift and veer:
This is steady and this is sure,
A signal over our hope and fear,
A pledge of the strength that shall endure--
Having no part in our storm-tossed strife--
A sign of union, which shall bring
Knowledge to men of their close-knit life,
The signal-fire of the king.
His friends are the old grey glorious waves,
The wide world round, the wide world round,
That have roared with our guns and covered our graves
From Nombre Dios to Plymouth Sound;
And his crown shall shine, a central sun
Round which the planet-nations sing,
Going their ways, but linked in one,
As the ships of our sailor-king.
Many the ships, but a single fleet;
Many the roads, but a single goal;
And a light, a light where all roads meet,
The beacon-fire of an Empire's soul;
The worth of that light his seamen know,
Through all the deaths that the storm can bring
The crown of their comrade-ship a-glow,
The signal-fire of the king.
[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Sailor-King
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