Quaker Poetry Group

The Dying Patriot

by James Elroy Flecker

 

DAY breaks on England down the Kentish hills,Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills,Day of my dreams, O day!I saw them march from Dover, long ago,With a silver cross before them, singing low,Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam,Augustine with his feet of snow.

 

Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,--Beauty she was statue cold--there's blood upon her gown:Noon of my dreams, O noon!Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago,With her towers and tombs and statues all arow,With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there,And the streets where the great men go.

 

Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales,When the first star shivers and the last wave pales:O evening dreams!There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago,Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow,And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overheadSway when the long winds blow.

 

Sleep not, my country: though night is here, afarYour children of the morning are clamorous for war:Fire in the night, O dreams!Though she send you as she sent you, long ago,South to the desert, east to ocean, north to snow,West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must goWhere the fleet of stars is anchored, and the young star-captains glow.

 

 

 

 

 

The Three Fishers

by Charles Kingsley

 

Three fishers went sailing away to the west-

Away to the west as the sun went down;

Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,

And the children stood watching them out of the town;

For men must work, and women must weep;

And there's little to earn, and many to keep,

Though the harbor bar be moaning.

 

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

And they trimm'd the lamps as the sun went down;

They look'd at the squall, and they look'd at the shower,

And the night-rack came rolling up, ragged and brown;

But men must work, and women must weep,

Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,

And the harbor bar be moaning.

 

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands

In the morning gleam as the tide went down,

And the women are weeping and wringing their hands

For those who will never come home to the town;

For men must work, and women must weep-

And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep-

And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.