Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than to ban, |
Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man - |
Flesh of the flesh that I bred, bone of the bone that I bare; |
Stark as your sons shall be - stern as your fathers were. |
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. |
Look, I have made ye a place and opened wide the doors, |
That ye may talk together, your Barons and Councillors - |
Wards of the Outer March, Lords of the Lower Seas, |
Ay, talk to your grey mother that bore you on her knees! - |
That ye may talk together, brother to brother’s face - |
Thus for the good of your peoples - thus for the Pride of the race. |
Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures, |
I shall know that your good is mine: ye shall feel that my strength is yours: |
In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all, |
That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall. |
Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands, |
And the Law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands. |
This for waxen Heath, and that for the Wattle-bloom, |
This for the Maple-leaf, and that for the Southern Broom. |
The Law that ye make shall be law and I do not press my will, |
Because ye are Sons of The Blood and call me Mother still. |
Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they must speak to you, |
After the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few. |
|
Baulking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise. |
|
Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men! |