A Song of the English (1909)

by Rudyard Kipling, W. Heath Robinson

Layout 2

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY RUDYARD KIPLING

COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY RUDYARD KIPLING

PUBLISHED, NOVEMBER, 1909

CONTENTS

I. A SONG OF THE ENGLISH

Fair is our lot—O goodly is our heritage!

II. THE COASTWISE LIGHTS

Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees.

III. THE SONG OF THE DEAD

Hear now the Song of the Dead—in the North by the torn berg-edges.

IV. THE DEEP-SEA CABLES

The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar.

V. THE SONG OF THE SONS

One from the ends of the earth gifts at an open door.

VI. THE SONGS OF THE CITIES:―

BOMBAY

Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen.

CALCUTTA

Me the Sea captain loved, the River built.

MADRAS

Clive kissed me on the mouth and eyes and brow.

RANGOON

Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade?

SINGAPORE

Hail, Mother! East and West must seek my aid.

HONG KONG

Hail, Mother! Hold me fast: my Praya sleeps.

HALIFAX

Into the mist my guardian prows put forth.

QUEBEC AND MONTREAL

Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose.

VICTORIA

From East to West the circling word has passed.

CAPETOWN

Hail! Snatched and bartered oft from hand to hand.

MELBOURNE

Greeting! Nor fear nor favour won us place.

SYDNEY

Greeting! My birth-stain have I turned to good.

BRISBANE

The northern stirp beneath the southern skies.

HOBART

Man's love first found me; man's hate made me Hell.

AUCKLAND

Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart.

VII. ENGLAND'S ANSWER

Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than to ban.

ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

1. Frontispiece.

Follow after—we are waiting by the trails that we lost, For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.

2.	Fair is our lot—goodly is our heritage! (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth! ⁠For the Lord our God Most High ⁠He hath made the deep as dry, He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth!

3.	Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees; Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.

4.	Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors.

5.	Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guardports of the Morn! Beat up, beat in from Southerly, gipsies of the Horn, Swift shuttles of an Empire's loom that weave us, main to main, The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again!

6.	Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need, Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.

7.	Then the wood failed—then the food failed—then the last water dried— In the faith of little children we lay down and died.

8.	On the sand-drift—on the veldt-side—in the fern-scrub we lay. That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.

9.	Follow after—follow after—for the harvest is sown: By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!

10.	When Drake went down to the Horn, And England was crowned thereby.

11.	We have fed our sea for a thousand years, ⁠And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves ⁠But marks our English dead.

12.	If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

13.	There's never a flood goes shoreward now ⁠But lifts a keel we manned; There's never an ebb goes seaward now ⁠But drops our dead on the sand— But slinks our dead on the sands forlore ⁠From the Ducies to the Swin

14.	The wrecks dissolve, above us; their dust drops down from afar— ⁠Down to the dark, the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.

15.	Here in the womb of the world—here on the tie-ribs of earth Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat— Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth— For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet.

16.	Those that have stayed at thy knees, Mother, go call them in— We that were bred overseas wait and would speak with our kin. Not in the dark do we fight—haggle and flout and gibe; Selling our love for a price, loaning our hearts for a bribe.

17.

Bombay.

18.

Calcutta.

19.

Madras.

20.

Rangoon.

21.	Singapore.

22.	Hong-Kong.

23.

Halifax.

24.	Quebec and Montreal.

25.

Capetown.

26.	Melbourne.

27.

Sydney.

28.

Hobart.

29.

Auckland.

30.	Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether, But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together. My arm is nothing weak, my strength is not gone by; Sons, I have borne many sons, but my dugs are not dry.