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Title: An Ode To Englishmen
Author: Eric Mackay [
More Titles by Mackay]
I.
I who have sung of love and lady bright
And mirth and music and the world's delight,
Behold! to-day, I sound a sterner note
To move the minds of foemen when they fight.
II.
Have I not said: There is no sweeter thing,
And none diviner than the wedding-ring?
And, all intent to make my meaning plain,
Have I not kiss'd the lips of Love, the King?
III.
Yea, this is so. But lo! to-day there comes
The far-off sound of trumpets and of drums;
And I must parley with the men of toil
Who rise in ranks exultant from the slums.
IV.
I must arraign each man; yea, all the host;
And each true soul shall learn the least and most
Of all his wrongs,--if wrongs indeed they be;
And he shall face the flag that guards the coast.
V.
He shall salute it! He shall find therein
Salve for his wounds and solace for his sin.
Brother and guide is he who loves his Land;
But he is kinless who denies his kin.
VI.
Has he a heart to feel, a knee to bend,
And will not trust his country to the end?
If this be so, God help him to a tear!
He shall be foiled, as foeman and as friend.
VII.
Bears he a sword? I care not. He is base;
Unfit to wield it, and of meaner place
Than tongue can tell of, in the Senate House;
And he shall find no balm for his disgrace.
VIII.
O men! I charge ye, in the name of Him
Who rules the world, and guards the cherubim,
I charge ye, pause, ere from the lighted track
Ye turn, distraught, to pathways that are dim.
IX.
Who gave your fathers, and your fathers' sons
The rights ye claim, amid the roar of guns,
And 'mid the flash thereof from sea to sea?
Your country! through her lov'd, her chosen ones.
X.
Oh, ye are dastards if ye lift a hand,
Dastards and fools, if, loveless in a band,
Ye touch in wrath the bulwark of the realm.
Ye shall be baulk'd, and Chivalry shall stand.
XI.
I have a sword, I also, and I swear
By my heart's faith, and by my Lady's hair,
That I will strike the first of ye that moves,
If by a sign ye wrong the flag ye bear.
XII.
In Freedom's name, in her's to whom we bow,
In her great name, I charge ye, palter now
With no traducer of your country's cause.
Accurst of God is he who breaks his vow!
[The end]
Eric Mackay's poem: Ode To Englishmen
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