Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/221

 ��These are the home, the happy cradle place Of every man who has our English tongue, Sprung from those loins from which our sires have sprung,

Heirs of the glory of our mighty race.

Brothers, we hold the pearl of priceless worth, How dare we then to cast our pearl aside ? Is it not more to us than all things are? Nay, peace is precious as the world is wide. But England's honor is more precious far

Than all the heavens and earth.

^Yere honor outcast from her supreme place Our pearl of peace no more a pearl would shine, But, trampled under foot of dogs and swine.

Rot in the mire of a deserved disgrace.

So, for our ^Mother's honor, since it must, Let peace be lost, but lost the worthier way.

Not trampled down, but given, for her sake, Who forged of many an iron yesterday

The golden song that gold-tongued Fame shall wake WTien we are dust, in dust ;

For life and love and death and praise and blame, And all the world, even to our very land. Weighed in the balance are as a grain of sand Against the honor of the English name I

— E. Neshit.

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