To my friend Lynn x
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Britons Beyond The Seas
Harold Begbie (part only)
And tho' we weave on a hundred shores,
And spin on a thousand quays,
And tho' we are truant with all the winds,
And gypsy with all the seas,
We are touched to tears as the heart is touched
By the sound of an ancient tune
At the name of the Isle in the Western seas
With the rose on her breast of June.
And it's O for a glimpse of England
And the buds that her garden yields,
The delicate scent which her hedges wind,
And the shimmering green of her fields,
The roll of her downs and the lull of her streams,
And the grace of her dew-drenched lawns,
And the calm of her shores where the waters wash
Rose-tinged with her thousand dawns.
And it's O for a glimpse of London Town,
Tho' it be through the fog and the rain,
The loud-thronged streets and the glittering shops,
The pageant of pomp and pain;
And it's O for a sight, tho' it be in a dream
Of the Briton's beacon and pride-
The cold grey Abbey that guards our ghosts
On Thames's sacred side.
