I FROM your island sloth awake you! Foes engird who fain would break you! Britons, up! and guard your own Ere your heritage be flown. What your fathers' valour won, Hold it till the day be done! For your sons and for your daughters, For your kin across the waters. @3Who'd be a little Englander, Whom English loins have bred? Who'd be a little Englander, And shame our mighty dead? Then for St George and England raise The war-cry of our sires! Let tor and headland flash the blaze Of Britain's sea-flung fires!@1 II Commerce recks not of her slaughter, Neither gives nor craveth quarter, Like the never-sated sea She devours eternally! Mark the products of our soil, Fast displaced by foreign toil! Mark the labour for our hands, Driven to plenish foreign lands! @3Who'd be a little Englander? &c@1. III What our rivals know to-day, Britain taught them first the way. What our rivals know to-morrow, Britain will be last to borrow! Knowledge none may ever spurn, For the wise have most to learn. We must keep an open mind Would we learn of all menkind. @3Who'd be a little Englander? &c@1. IV Give us leave to meet our foes With the weapons that they chose, Britons! we can hold our own, Fortune smile, or Fortune frown. Not on laurels of the past Stands our Empire firm and fast; But on each true son's endeavour, Striving toward the Great Forever! @3Who'd be a little Englander, Whom English loins have bred? Who'd be a little Englander, And shame our mighty dead? Then for St George and England raise The war-cry of our sires! Let tor and headland flash the blaze Of Britain's sea-flung fires!@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPRING BLIZZARD by JAMES GALVIN VENUS IN A GARDEN by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: COONEY POTTER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS MATER IN EXTREMIS by JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER TREES by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS |