The King's Pilgrimage

Our King went forth on pilgrimage His prayers and vows to pay To them that saved our heritage And cast their own away. And there was little show of pride, Or prows of belted steel, For the clean-swept oceans every side Lay free to every keel. And the first land he found, it was shoal and banky ground, Where the broader seas begin, And a pale tide grieving at the broken harbour-mouth Where they worked the death-ships in. And there was neither gull on the wing, Nor wave that could not tell Of the bodies that were buckled in the life-buoy's ring That slid from swell to swell. All that they had they gave, they gave; and they shall not return, For these are those that have no grave where any heart may mourn. And the next land he found, it was low and hollow ground, Where once the cities stood, But the man-high thistle had been master of it all, Or the bulrush by the flood. And there was neither blade of grass, Nor lone star in the sky But shook to see some spirit pass And took its agony. And the next land be found, it was bare and hilly round, Where once the bread-corn grew, But the fields were cankered and the water was defiled, And the trees were riven through. And there was neither paved highway, Nor secret path in the wood, But had borne its weight of the broken clay And darkened 'neath the blood. Father and mother they put aside, and the nearer love also, An hundred thousand men who died whose graves shall no man know. And the last land he found, it was fair and level ground About a carven stone, And a stark Sword brooding on the bosom of the Cross Where high and low are one. And there was grass and the living trees, And the flowers of the spring, And there lay gentlemen from out of all the seas That ever called him King. 'Twixt Nieuport sands and the eastward lands where the Four Red Rivers spring, Five hundred thousand gentlemen of those that served their King. All that they had they gave, they gave, In sure and single faith. There can no knowledge reach the grave To make them grudge their death Save only if they understood That, after all was done, We they redeemed denied their blood And mocked the gains it won.