Dedication

     The sea of the years that endure not
       Whose tide shall endure till we die
     And know what the seasons assure not,
       If death be or life be a lie,
     Sways hither the spirit and thither,
       A waif in the swing of the sea
     Whose wrecks are of memories that wither
           As leaves of a tree.

     We hear not and hail not with greeting
       The sound of the wings of the years,
     The storm of the sound of them beating,
       That none till it pass from him hears:
     But tempest nor calm can imperil
       The treasures that fade not or fly;
     Change bids them not change and be sterile,
           Death bids them not die.

     Hearts plighted in youth to the royal
       High service of hope and of song,
     Sealed fast for endurance as loyal,
       And proved of the years as they throng,
     Conceive not, believe not, and fear not
       That age may be other than youth;
     That faith and that friendship may hear not
           And utter not truth.

     Not yesterday's light nor to-morrow's
       Gleams nearer or clearer than gleams,
     Though joys be forgotten and sorrows
       Forgotten as changes of dreams,
     The dawn of the days unforgotten
       That noon could eclipse not or slay,
     Whose fruits were as children begotten
           Of dawn upon day.

     The years that were flowerful and fruitless,
       The years that were fruitful and dark,
     The hopes that were radiant and rootless,
       The hopes that were winged for their mark,
     Lie soft in the sepulchres fashioned
       Of hours that arise and subside,
     Absorbed and subdued and impassioned,
           In pain or in pride.

     But far in the night that entombs them
       The starshine as sunshine is strong,
     And clear through the cloud that resumes them
       Remembrance, a light and a song,
     Rings lustrous as music and hovers
       As birds that impend on the sea,
     And thoughts that their prison-house covers
           Arise and are free.

     Forgetfulness deep as a prison
       Holds days that are dead for us fast
     Till the sepulchre sees rearisen
       The spirit whose reign is the past,
     Disentrammelled of darkness, and kindled
       With life that is mightier than death,
     When the life that obscured it has dwindled
           And passed as a breath.

     But time nor oblivion may darken
       Remembrance whose name will be joy
     While memory forgets not to hearken,
       While manhood forgets not the boy
     Who heard and exulted in hearing
       The songs of the sunrise of youth
     Ring radiant above him, unfearing
           And joyous as truth.

     Truth, winged and enkindled with rapture
       And sense of the radiance of yore,
     Fulfilled you with power to recapture
       What never might singer before--
     The life, the delight, and the sorrow
       Of troublous and chivalrous years
     That knew not of night or of morrow,
           Of hopes or of fears.

     But wider the wing and the vision
       That quicken the spirit have spread
     Since memory beheld with derision
       Man's hope to be more than his dead.
     From the mists and the snows and the thunders
       Your spirit has brought for us forth
     Light, music, and joy in the wonders
           And charms of the north.

     The wars and the woes and the glories
       That quicken and lighten and rain
     From the clouds of its chronicled stories,
       The passion, the pride, and the pain,
     Whose echoes were mute and the token
       Was lost of the spells that they spake,
     Rise bright at your bidding, unbroken
           Of ages that break.

     For you, and for none of us other,
       Time is not: the dead that must live
     Hold commune with you as a brother
       By grace of the life that you give.
     The heart that was in them is in you,
       Their soul in your spirit endures:
     The strength of their song is the sinew
           Of this that is yours.

     Hence is it that life, everlasting
       As light and as music, abides
     In the sound of the surge of it, casting
       Sound back to the surge of the tides,
     Till sons of the sons of the Norsemen
       Watch, hurtling to windward and lee,
     Round England, unbacked of her horsemen,
           The steeds of the sea.