A country that can think, and thinking, acts; A country that can act, and acting, dreams; That neither bears the tyranny of facts, Nor of its own dear hopes, nor of what seems, 

 But still, clear-visioned, treats with things that are; Yet—seer, prophet, priest of life-to-be— Leaps to the visionary days afar, And all the splendour she will never see. 

 School of the spirit, chastening, yet a spur For all that men aspire to: as of old Athens held up the torch, and did incur Persia, with her fierce armies manifold, 

 So France against the evil strikes and strives For liberty, and we of island race, —Humbled a little by our careless lives— Glory to stand beside her in our place, 

 Glory that we are one in hope and aim With her from whom in blood and agony The second gift of human freedom came Through Terror and the red Gethsemane. 

 On her fair, ravaged borders stand her guns, She has thrown away the scabbards, bared the swords, And, snatching laughter out of death, her sons Challenge high Fate to show what life affords— France! 

 

 

   ILGAR'S SONG 

 (From King Monmouth) 

 O love that dwells in the innermost heart of man Secret and dark and still, Like a bird in the core of a green mid-summer tree— Height upon height and depth upon depth where never the eye can see The brown bird, hidden and still. 

 O Love that is wild and eager, sun-lit and free Like a seagull that turns in the sunlight above the sea; Between the sea and the sky it flashes and turns, And the sun on its wings is white, While sharply and shrill by the headland the keen wind sings Where the grass is salt and grey With the beating winter spray, And the seagull sweeps and soars on magnificent wings. 

 Love that is like a flame, Held in the hollow hand, So dear and precious a thing As a light in a stranger land, As a flickering candle to him who wanders by night. 

 Love that is wide as the dawn To the eyes of night-bound men; And the evil ghosts and the goblins it puts to flight, And stealthy creatures of dark that rustle and creep, And elfins and witches and all such devil's game That cannot live in the light, They squeak and gibber and cheep, And vanish like shadows before the splendour of day. 

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