Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/142

 116 ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES

��Flung abroad no foolish cry of treason At the Rulers of her arms and State —

Pardoned those whose eyes were proven blinder Than was Wisdom to the approach of war —

Put her unpreparedness behind her, Only bade us look, henceforth, before.

Therefore, every cry of party faction

Into patriot silence fell away ; Britain summoned all her sons to action —

Suffering Britain — could we but obey ? .

Then the adamantine cable stretching,

Python-like across the ocean floor. Aid on aid from her far children fetching.

Bade her heart with hope beat high once more ; Till the friends and foes whose fine derision

Long had flouted her Imperial dream, Stood at gaze to mark the stately vision

Rise incarnate o'er the ocean stream ; Marvelling, while above the pine-fringed waters,

While above the palm-set Austral earth At their Mother's call, her mighty daughters,

Sprang, as Pallas sprang, full-armed to birth ; While, O proudest Page in all the story

Of Imperial India's book of life ! One by one each Princely Feudatory

In our service arms him for the strife.

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