England is mine, and I am England's own!
All that is best within me lives for her alone.
That which is base and vile I spurn from me
Lest she with her unsleeping eyes should see,
And me condemn. She bore me in her womb
Where wild winds blew; and through the storm-lashed gloom
Came ocean's boom.
And I was wove a living thread here strung
In the vast loom.
She was my mother mighty-voiced. I hung
Upon her breasts and greedy-mouthed did drink
Her noble sustenance. And on the brink
Of secret things I stood, when sweet and high
Her slumber songs lulled me to sleep, and I
Heard through their mounting cadence, wild and free,
The low andante beating of a sea.
England is mine, and I am England's own!
I am a singing harp, and hers the hand alone
That plays the strings. Without, I am a thing,
Dead, dumb, inanimate. So shall I sing!
Here at the door-way of her room I keep
A ceaseless watch, untouched by straying sleep --
Dream shadowed, deep.
A living flame of fire from out its sheath
My sword shall leap,
If I should hear her proud soul moan beneath
A weight of woe. My voice shall beat the stars
And thund'ring shake the might of Heaven's bars
Till earth's dark caverns echo with the cry: --
"Here, mother, mighty-souled, O England, I
Am here to serve! Born of the wind and sea
I give thee back the life thou gav'st to me!"
First published in The Argus, 12 May 1917;
and later in
England and Other Verses by Myra Morris, 1918.
