Page:A song of the English (1909).djvu/16

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