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“They say the sun is on your knees
A lamp to light your lands from harm,
They say you turn the seven seas
To little brooks about your farm.
I hear the sea and the new song
that calls you empress all day long.

“(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie
Dying in swamps–you shall not die,
Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust,
Your poor are chased about like dust,
Emptied of anger and surprise–
And God has gone out of their eyes,
Your cohorts break–your captains lie,
I say to you, you shall not die.)”

Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there is an English country that the Imperialists have never found. The British Empire may annex what it likes, it will never annex England. It has not even discovered the island, let alone conquered it. I took up the two tunes again with a greater sympathy for the first–

“I know the bright baptismal rains,
I love your tender troubled skies,
I know your little climbing lanes,
Are peering into Paradise,
From open hearth to orchard cool,
How bountiful and beautiful.

“(O throttled and without a cry,
O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die,
The frightful word is on your walls,
The east sea to the west sea calls,
The stars are dying in the sky,
You shall not die; you shall not die.)”

Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely and at random–

“I see you how you smile in state
Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar,
You need not tell me you are great,
I know how more than great you are.
I know what William Shakespeare was,
I have seen Gainsborough and the grass.

“(O given to believe a lie,
O my mad mother, do do not die,
Whose eyes turn all ways but within,
Whose sin is innocence of sin,
Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon,
Can see the motes upon the moon,
You shall your lover still pursue.
To what last madhouse shelters you
I will uphold you, even I.
You that are dead. You shall not die.)”

But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; and as for the German band, that would not stop for anybody.