Northumberland

Between our eastward and our westward sea     The narrowing strand     Clasps close the noblest shore fame holds in fee     Even here where English birth seals all men free     Northumberland.     The sea-mists meet across it when the snow     Clothes moor and fell,     And bid their true-born hearts who love it glow     For joy that none less nobly born may know     What love knows well.     The splendour and the strength of storm and fight     Sustain the song     That filled our fathers' hearts with joy to smite,     To live, to love, to lay down life that right     Might tread down wrong.     They warred, they sang, they triumphed, and they passed,     And left us glad     Here to be born, their sons, whose hearts hold fast     The proud old love no change can overcast,     No chance leave sad.     None save our northmen ever, none but we,     Met, pledged, or fought     Such foes and friends as Scotland and the sea     With heart so high and equal, strong in glee     And stern in thought.     Thought, fed from time's memorial springs with pride,     Made strong as fire     Their hearts who hurled the foe down Flodden side,     And hers who rode the waves none else durst ride     None save her sire.     O land beloved, where nought of legend's dream     Outshines the truth,     Where Joyous Gard, closed round with clouds that gleam     For them that know thee not, can scarce but seem     Too sweet for sooth,     Thy sons forget not, nor shall fame forget,     The deed there done     Before the walls whose fabled fame is yet     A light too sweet and strong to rise and set     With moon and sun.     Song bright as flash of swords or oars that shine     Through fight or foam     Stirs yet the blood thou hast given thy sons like wine     To hail in each bright ballad hailed as thine     One heart, one home.     Our Collingwood, though Nelson be not ours,     By him shall stand     Immortal, till those waifs of oldworld hours,     Forgotten, leave uncrowned with bays and flowers     Northumberland.