A Word for the Navy

I     Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her     The mightiest of seamen on earth,     Bright England, whose glories adorn her     And bid her rejoice in thy birth     As others made mothers     Rejoice in births sublime,     She names thee, she claims thee,     The lordliest child of time. II     All hers is the praise of thy story,     All thine is the love of her choice     The light of her waves is thy glory,     The sound of thy soul is her voice.     They fear it who hear it     And love not truth nor thee:     They sicken, heart-stricken,     Who see and would not see. III     The lords of thy fate, and thy keepers     Whose charge is the strength of thy ships,     If now they be dreamers and sleepers,     Or sluggards with lies at their lips,     Thy haters and traitors,     False friends or foes descried,     Might scatter and shatter     Too soon thy princely pride. IV     Dark Muscovy, reptile in rancour,     Base Germany, blatant in guile,     Lay wait for thee riding at anchor     On waters that whisper and smile.     They deem thee or dream thee     Less living now than dead,     Deep sunken and drunken     With sleep whence fear has fled. V     And what though thy song as thine action     Wax faint, and thy place be not known,     While faction is grappling with faction,     Twin curs with thy corpse for a bone?     They care not, who spare not     The noise of pens or throats;     Who bluster and muster     Blind ranks and bellowing votes. VI     Let populace jangle with peerage     And ministers shuffle their mobs;     Mad pilots who reck not of steerage     Though tempest ahead of them throbs.     That throbbing and sobbing     Of wind and gradual wave     They hear not and fear not     Who guide thee toward thy grave. VII     No clamour of cries or of parties     Is worth but a whisper from thee,     While only the trust of thy heart is     At one with the soul of the sea.     In justice her trust is     Whose time her tidestreams keep;     They sink not, they shrink not,     Time casts them not on sleep. VIII     Sleep thou: for thy past was so royal,     Love hardly would bid thee take heed     Were Russia not faithful and loyal     Nor Germany guiltless of greed.     No nation, in station     Of story less than thou,     Re-risen from prison,     Can stand against thee now. IX     Sleep on: is the time not a season     For strong men to slumber and sleep,     And wise men to palter with treason?     And that they sow tares, shall they reap?     The wages of ages     Wherein men smiled and slept,     Fame fails them, shame veils them,     Their record is not kept. X     Nay, whence is it then that we know it,     What wages were theirs, and what fame?     Deep voices of prophet and poet     Bear record against them of shame.     Death, starker and darker     Than seals the graveyard grate,     Entombs them and dooms them     To darkness deep as fate. XI     But thou, though the world should misdoubt thee,     Be strong as the seas at thy side;     Bind on but thine armour about thee,     That girds thee with power and with pride.     Where Drake stood, where Blake stood,     Where fame sees Nelson stand,     Stand thou too, and now too     Take thou thy fate in hand. XII     At the gate of the sea, in the gateway,     They stood as the guards of thy gate;     Take now but thy strengths to thee straightway,     Though late, we will deem it not late.     Thy story, thy glory,     The very soul of thee,     It rose not, it grows not,     It comes not save by sea.