| |
| SHADOW by shadow, stripped for fight, | |
| The lean black cruisers search the sea. | |
| Night-long their level shafts of light | |
| Revolve, and find no enemy. | |
| Only they know each leaping wave | 5 |
| May hide the lightning, and their grave. | |
| |
| And in the land they guard so well | |
| Is there no silent watch to keep? | |
| An age is dying, and the bell | |
| Rings midnight on a vaster deep. | 10 |
| But over all its waves, once more | |
| The searchlights move, from shore to shore. | |
| |
| And captains that we thought were dead, | |
| And dreamers that we thought were dumb, | |
| And voices that we thought were fled, | 15 |
| Arise, and call us, and we come; | |
| And “Search in thine own soul,” they cry; | |
| “For there, too, lurks thine enemy.” | |
| |
| Search for the foe in thine own soul, | |
| The sloth, the intellectual pride; | 20 |
| The trivial jest that veils the goal | |
| For which our fathers lived and died; | |
| The lawless dreams, the cynic Art, | |
| That rend thy nobler self apart. | |
| |
| Not far, not far into the night, | 25 |
| These level swords of light can pierce; | |
| Yet for her faith does England fight, | |
| Her faith in this our universe, | |
| Believing Truth and Justice draw | |
| From founts of everlasting law; | 30 |
| |
| The law that rules the stars, our stay, | |
| Our compass through the world’s wide sea, | |
| The one sure light, the one sure way, | |
| The one firm base of Liberty; | |
| The one firm road that men have trod | 35 |
| Through Chaos to the throne of God. | |
| |
| Therefore a Power above the State, | |
| The unconquerable Power, returns, | |
| The fire, the fire that made her great | |
| Once more upon her altar burns, | 40 |
| Once more, redeemed and healed and whole, | |
| She moves to the Eternal Goal. | |
| |
