Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/780

762 If you go to Museums—there's one in Whitehall—

Where old weapons are shown with their names writ beneath,

You will find her, upstanding, her back to the wall,

As stiff as a ramrod, the flint in her teeth.

And if ever we English had reason to bless

Any arm save our mothers', that arm is Brown Bess!



THE AMERICAN REBELLION

(1776)

I

WAS not while England's sword unsheathed

Put half a world to flight,

Nor while their new-built cities breathed

Secure behind her might;

Not while she poured from Pole to Line

Treasure and ships and men—

These worshippers at Freedom's shrine

They did not quit her then!

Not till their foes were driven forth

By England o'er the main—

Not till the Frenchman from the North

Had gone with shattered Spain;

Not till the clean-swept oceans showed

No hostile flag unrolled,

Did they remember what they owed

To Freedom—and were bold!

