Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/10

vi When they talk with the stranger bands,

Dazed and newly alone;

When they walk in the stranger lands,

By roaring streets unknown;

Blessing her where she stands

For strength above their own.

(On high to hold her fame

That stands all fame beyond,

By oath to back the same,

Most faithful-foolish-fond;

Making her mere-breathed name

Their bond upon their bond.)

So thank I God my birth

Fell not in isles aside—

Waste headlands of the earth,

Or warring tribes untried—

But that she lent me worth

And gave me right to pride.

Surely in toil or fray

Under an alien sky,

Comfort it is to say:

 ' Of no mean city am I! '