MY ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2754, 25 April 1916, Page 3

MY ENGLAND

(By William Winter.)

My England!- Not my native land,■ But aear-to mo as if b'ho were,— How often have I longed to stand - • "Witt those brave hearts who fight for her!

Bereft by■ Fortune, worn with Age, My lifei is all X have to give, But freely would that life engage For those who'died that she may live.

Mother-of Freedom! Pledged to Eight.! From Honour's, path .she would not stray, : . ' But, sternly faithful, used her might - To lead mankind the nobler way.

Her'task was hard, her burden great, ' But 'round the world her edict ran That reared and ruled a Sovereign State, Securely, on the Eights of Man.

No_ vandal foot should tread - her' land, No despot hold lier realm in awe; The humblest peasant should command The shelter of her righteous law, -

In vain her lion port was braved! Her pennant i streamed o'er ev'ry sea, And wheresoe'er her ensign waved 'AH fetters fell and'llan was free. .

■To-day be all her faults forgot,— The errors of her nascent prim>, Or' wily politician's plot, Or blunder that was almost crime.

To-day, when desperate tyrants strain, — By Greed, and Fear, and Hate com- ' bined,— • . ' ' To blast her power and rend her reign, . She fights the fight of ail mankind: :

She fights for us,—for this fair clime, Our home belov'd, where freemen-dwell, Columbia, grandest born of Time, ; . That Teuton malice burns' to quell.

My England! Should the hope be croafc. In which she' taught the world to strive, Then'all of Virtue would be lost And naught of Manhood left alive.

But 'tis not in the Book of Doom' That Justice, Honour, ~Truth, should ■fail, ' That earth be made a living tomb, . - And only brutal Wrong prevail. ;'

It cannot be the human race, ; Long struggling up to Freedom's sun, Is destined to the/abject place . Of vassal to the murd'rous Huh!

In cy'ry land that knows the ills Of Bondage, and has borne its aches, .The deathless pulse of Freedom thrills And Reason's noble rage awakes. ; ■

See splendid Italy advance, And grimly issuing from his lair,. To urasp the hand of glorious France, Stalk forth th' intrepid Russian bear!

My England!—patient, valiant; true!— Nor foes without, nor frauds within Will shake her purpose to subdue The cohorts of embattled sin; .

!The swinish horde, the gilded beasts, In whom no touch of ruth survive!, Who.ravish women,'■ murder priests,' : And strew the'sea with, infant lives;

The Lords of War, who kill ahd.maiih, Exultant, while their people groan, Steeping -themselves -dn crime and shame, To keep a despot on his throne;—

That pigmy, to whose 'wildei-ed brain . Himself an Attila appears, Who takes the name of God- in vain. And drowns the earth in Wood and tears!

My: England, strike! ■' Droop" not, nor pause, Till triumph on your banners Aine! Then take a grateful world's- applause,— Millions of heart* that beat like mine. The "New York,. Times" Magazine.