Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/85

LIGHTS are out from Shields to Whitby, and there burn no bonfires red
High on Cromer or on Saltfleet or on bold Flamborough Head;
Grimsby, Harwich, Wells, and Lowestoft, shine no longer on the deep,
England s shores are grimly guarded, gravely sentinelled to sleep.

Coast and isle are thick enshrouded lest an enemy might mark
Cottage lamp or castle beacon beckoning stilly in the dark. . . .
’Tis a new thing for England, the country of the free,
’Tis a strange thing for England, but so—so let it be!

Let it be a little longer till the turning of the tide,
Till the talk of foul invasion and of fusillade subside;
Lest the foe, marauding, ravish, and on humble homes encroach,
For the sake of wives and children to be ‘dark’ is no reproach.

Lights will glimmer all the gayer for the hours ensombred now,
When the battle rage has wasted, when the sword gives place to plow,
Every hearth shall bear its blazon, every pane with candle set
Shall irradiate the glooming and illume Old England yet.

From the North Sea came a peril o er a thousand years ago,
And the peril changed to bounty, as a friend is made from foe.