Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/239

 To the home of the floods and thunder, To her pale dry healing blue— To the lift of the great Cape combers, And the smell of the baked Karroo. To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head— To the reef and the water-gold, To the last and the largest Empire, To the map that is half unrolled!

To our dear dark foster-mothers, To the heathen songs they sung— To the heathen speech we babbled Ere we came to the white man's tongue. To the cool of our deep verandas— To the blaze of our jewelled main, To the night, to the palms in the moonlight, And the fire-fly in the cane!

To the hearth of Our People's People— To her well-ploughed windy sea, To the hush of our dread high-altar Where The Abbey makes us We. To the grist of the slow-ground ages, To the gain that is yours and mine— To the Bank of the Open Credit, To the Power-house of the Line!

We've drunk to the Queen—God bless her! We've drunk to our mothers' land; We've drunk to our English brother (And we hope he'll understand). We've drunk as much as we're able, And the Cross swings low for the morn; Last toast and your foot on the table!— A health to the Native-born!