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| HEAR now the Song of the Dead—in the North by the torn berg-edges— | |
| They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges. | |
| Song of the Dead in the South—in the sun by their skeleton horses, | |
| Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses. | |
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| Song of the Dead in the East—in the heat-rotted jungle-hollows, | 5 |
| Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof—in the brake of the buffalo-wallows. | |
| Song of the Dead in the West—in the Barrens, the pass that betrayed them, | |
| Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-mound they made them; | |
| Hear now the Song of the Dead! | |
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I We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town; | 10 |
| We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down. | |
| Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need, | |
| Till the Soul that is not man’s soul was lent us to lead. | |
| As the deer breaks—as the steer breaks—from the herd where they graze, | |
| In the faith of little children we went on our ways. | 15 |
| Then the wood failed—then the food failed—then the last water dried— | |
| In the faith of little children we lay down and died. | |
| On the sand-drift—on the veldt-side—in the fern-scrub we lay, | |
| That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way. | |
| Follow after—follow after! We have watered the root, | 20 |
| And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit! | |
| Follow after—we are waiting, by the trails that we lost, | |
| For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host. | |
| Follow after—follow after—for the harvest is sown: | |
| By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own! | 25 |
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| When Drake went down to the Horn | |
| And England was crowned thereby, | |
| ’Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed | |
| Our Lodge—our Lodge was born | |
| (And England was crowned thereby!) | 30 |
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| Which never shall close again | |
| By day nor yet by night, | |
| While man shall take his life to stake | |
| At risk of shoal or main | |
| (By day nor yet by night) | 35 |
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| But standeth even so | |
| As now we witness here, | |
| While men depart, of joyful heart, | |
| Adventure for to know | |
| (As now bear witness here!) | 40 |
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II We have fed our sea for a thousand years | |
| And she calls us, still unfed, | |
| Though there’s never a wave of all her waves | |
| But marks our English dead: | |
| We have strawed our best to the weed’s unrest, | 45 |
| To the shark and the sheering gull. | |
| If blood be the price of admiralty, | |
| Lord God, we ha’ paid in full! | |
| |
| There’s never a flood goes shoreward now | |
| But lifts a keel we manned; | 50 |
| There’s never an ebb goes seaward now | |
| But drops our dead on the sand— | |
| But slinks our dead on the sands forlore, | |
| From the Ducies to the Swin. | |
| If blood be the price of admiralty, | 55 |
| If blood be the price of admiralty, | |
| Lord God, we ha’ paid it in! | |
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| We must feed our sea for a thousand years, | |
| For that is our doom and pride, | |
| As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind, | 60 |
| Or the wreck that struck last tide— | |
| Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef | |
| Where the ghastly blue-lights flare. | |
| If blood be the price of admiralty, | |
| If blood be the price of admiralty, | 65 |
| If blood be the price of admiralty, | |
| Lord God, we ha’ bought it fair! | |
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