Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/219

 ��A SONG OF PEACE AND HONOR

We, men of England, children of her might, With all our mother's record-roll of glory.

Great with her greatness, noble with her name, Drank with our mother's milk our mother's storv, And in our veins the splendor of her fame ^lade strong our blood and bright ; And to her absent sons her name has been Familiar music heard in distant lands, Heart of our heart, and sinews of our hands, England, our JMother, our Mistress and our Queen !

Out of the thunderous echoes of the past.

Through the gold dust of centuries, we hear Her voice : "O children of a royal line.

Sons of my heart who hold your England dear, Mine was the past, make ye the future mine All glorious to the last I" And, as we hear her, cowards grow to men.

And men to heroes, and the voice of fear

Is as a whisper in a deaf man's ear And the dead past is quick in us again.

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