Page:Poems of the Great War - National Relief Fund.djvu/31

 Are trodden underfoot like wayside flowers, And every English heart is England's wholly. In starless night A serious passion streams the heaven with light. A common beating is in the air— The heart of England throbbing everywhere. And all her roads are nerves of noble thought; And all her people's brain is but her brain; And all her history (less her shame) Is part of her requickened consciousness. Her courage rises clean again; Her children's inspiration is her name, her name!

Even in victory there hides defeat; The spirit's murdered though the body survives, Except the cause for which a people strives Burn with no covetous, foul heart; Fights she against herself who infamously draws The sword against man's secret spiritual laws. But thou, England, because a bitter heel Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will, The conscience of the world, For this, England, art risen, and shalt fight Purely through long profoundest night,