NEW POEMS

They diced with Death. Their big sea-boots

Were greased with blood. They swept the seas

For England; and — we reap the fruits

Of their heroic deviltries!

Our creed is in the cold machine,

The inhuman devildoms of brain,

The bolt that splits the midnight main,

Loosed at a lever's touch; the lean

Torpedo; “Twenty Miles of Power”;

The steel-clad Dreadnoughts’ dark array!

Yet... we that keep the conning tower

Are not so strong as they

Whose watchword we disdain.

They laughed at odds for England's sake!

We count, yet cast our strength away.

One Admiral with the soul of Drake

Would break the fleets of hell to-day!

Give us the splendid heavens of youth,

Give us the banners of deathless flame,

The ringing watchwords of their fame,

The faith, the hope, the simple truth!

Then shall the Deep indeed be swayed

Through all its boundless breadth and length,

Nor this proud England lean dismayed

On twenty miles of strength,

Or shrink from aught but shame.

Pull out by night, O leave the shore

And lighted streets of Plymouth town,

Pull out into the Deep once more!

There, in the night of their renown,

The same great waters roll their gloom

Around our midget period;

And the huge decks that Raleigh trod

Over our petty darkness loom!

Along the line the cry is passed

From all their heaven-illumined spars,

Clear as a bell, from mast to mast,

It rings against the stars:

Before the world — was God.