The Seven Seas. Rudyard Kipling

      Hail, Mother! East and West must seek my aid

      Ere the spent gear shall dare the ports afar.

      The second doorway of the wide world's trade

      Is mine to loose or bar.

      Hail, Mother! Hold me fast; my Praya sleeps

      Under innumerable keels to-day.

      Yet guard (and landward) or to-morrow sweeps

      Thy warships down the bay.

      Into the mist my guardian prows put forth,

      Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie,

      The Warden of the Honour of the North,

      Sleepless and veiled am I!

      Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose,

      Foolish and causeless, half in jest, half hate.

      Now wake we and remember mighty blows,

      And, fearing no man, wait!

      From East to West the circling word has passed,

      Till West is East beside our land-locked blue;

      From East to West the tested chain holds fast,

      The well-forged link rings true!

      Hail! Snatched and bartered oft from hand to hand,

      I dream my dream, by rock and heath and pine,

      Of Empire to the northward. Ay, one land

      From Lion's Head to Line!

      Greeting! Nor fear nor favour won us place,

      Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth,

      Loud-voiced and reckless as the wild tide-race

      That whips our harbour-mouth!

      Greeting! My birth-stain have I turned to good;

      Forcing strong wills perverse to steadfastness;

      The first flush of the tropics in my blood,

      And at my feet Success!

      The northern stirp beneath the southern skies —

      I build a nation for an Empire's need,

      Suffer a little, and my land shall rise,

      Queen over lands indeed!

      Man's love first found me; man's hate made me Hell;

      For my babes' sake I cleansed those infamies.

      Earnest for leave to live and labour well

      God flung me peace and ease.

      Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart —

      On us, on us the unswerving season smiles,

      Who wonder 'mid our fern why men depart

      To seek the Happy Isles!

      Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than to ban;

      Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man.

      Flesh of the flesh that I bred, bone of the bone that I bare;

      Stark as your sons shall be – stern as your fathers were.

      Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether,

      But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together.

      My arm is nothing weak, my strength is not gone by;

      Sons, I have borne many sons but my dugs are not dry.

      Look, I have made ye a place and opened wide the doors,

      That ye may talk together, your Barons and Councillors —

      Wards of the Outer March, Lords of the Lower Seas,

      Ay, talk to your gray mother that bore you on her knees! —

      That ye may talk together, brother to brother's face —

      Thus for the good of your peoples – thus for the Pride of the Race.

      Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures,

      I shall know that your good is mine: ye shall feel that my strength is yours:

      In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all,

      That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall.

      Draw now the three-fold knot firm on the nine-fold bands,

      And the Law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands.

      This for the waxen Heath, and that for the Wattle-bloom,

      This for the Maple-leaf, and that for the southern Broom.

      The Law that ye make shall be law and I do not press my will,

      Because ye are Sons of The Blood and call me Mother still.

      Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they must speak to you,

      After the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few.

      Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways,

      Baulking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise.

      Stand to your work and be wise – certain of sword and pen,

      Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men!

      Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found her;

      Haling her dumb from the camp, held her and bound her.

      Hot rose her tribe on our track ere I had proved her;

      Hearing her laugh in the gloom, greatly I loved her.

      Swift through the forest we ran; none stood to guard us,

      Few were my people and far; then the flood barred us —

      Him we call Son of the Sea, sullen and swollen;

      Panting we waited the death, stealer and stolen,

      Yet ere they came to my lance laid for the slaughter,

      Lightly she leaped to a log lapped in the water;

      Holding on high and apart skins that arrayed her,

      Called she the God of the Wind that he should aid her.

      Life had the tree at that word, (Praise we the Giver!)

      Otter-like left he the bank for the full river.

      Far fell their axes behind, flashing and ringing,

      Wonder was on me and fear, yet she was singing.

      Low lay the