Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/296

112 The North Wind blew:—"From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;

"I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe;

"By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God,

"That the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod.

"I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame,

"Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came;

"I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast,

"And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed.

"The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night,

"The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light:

"What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare,

"Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!"