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Cornell University 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 35681 1 2 
 
JUBILEE GREETING AT SPITHEAD 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MEN OF GREATER BRITAIN. 
 
By same Author. 
 POEMS. In the Press. 5/- nett. 
 
JUBILEE GREETING 
 AT SPITHEAD TO THE 
 
 MEN OF GREATER BRITAIN 
 
 By 
 THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON 
 
 LONDON & NEW YORK : JOHN LANE 
 
 at the Sign of the^BOBLET HEAD. 
 
 M DCCC XCVIl 
 E.V. 
 
/\.2L^ Z<o S^ 
 
 Pettitt & Cox, Printers, Frith Street, Soho, London, W. 
 
TO OUR GREAT CONTEMPORARY WRITER 
 
 OF PATRIOTIC POETRY, 
 
 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 
 
 Tou and I are old enough to remember the time when, in 
 the world of letters at least, patriotism was not so fashionable 
 as it is vow — when, indeed, love of England suggested 
 Philistinism rather than " sweetness and light." Other 
 people, such as Frenchmen, Italians, Irishmen, Hungarians, 
 Poles, might give voice to a passionate love of the land of 
 thetr birth, but not Englishmen. It was very curious, as 1 
 thought then, and as I think now. And at that period love 
 of the Colonies was, if possible, even more out of fashion than 
 was love of England ; and this temper was not confined to the 
 " cultured " class. It pervaded society and had an immense 
 
influence upon politics. On one side the Manchester school, 
 religiously hoping that if the Colonies could be insulted so 
 effectuall'j that they must needs (unless they abandoned all 
 self-respect) " set up for themselves" the same enormous spurt 
 would be given to British trade which occurred after the birth 
 of the United States, bade the Colonies "cut the painter" 
 On the other hand the old lories and Whigs, with a few 
 noble exceptions, having never really abandoned the old 
 traditions respecting the unimportance of all matters outside 
 the parochial circle of European diplomacy, scarcely knew where 
 the Colonies were situated on the map. 
 
 There was, however, in these islands one person who saw 
 as clearly then as all see now the infinite importance of the 
 expansion of England to the true progress of mankind — the 
 Great Lady whose praises in this regard I have presumea to 
 sing in the opening stanza of these verses. 
 
 I may be wrong, but I, who am, as you know, no courtier, 
 believe from the bottom of my heart that without the influence 
 of the ^een this expansion would have been seriously delayed. 
 Directly and indirectly her influence must needs he enormous, 
 and, as regards this matter, it has always been exercised — 
 energetically and even eagerly exercised — in one way. This 
 
being my view, I have for years been urging more than one 
 friend clothed with an authority such as I do not possess to 
 bring the subject prominently before the people of England at a 
 time when England's expansion is a phrase in everybody's 
 mouth. I have not succeeded. Let this be my apology for 
 undertaking the task myself and for inscribing to you, as well 
 as to the men of Greater Britain, these lines. 
 
 ^ 
 
PART I. 
 
 I. 
 
 In this great year — this year of her 
 Who loved you in your infant days, the Queen— 
 
 Who when the timid sophister 
 Was fain to narrow the divine demesne 
 
 Of Freedom, bade it still expand — 
 Loved you, in all her loveless realm alone — 
 
 Ye come to her whose gentle hand 
 
 Ay drew you to the Motherland, 
 Drew you till Ocean's mighty waist was spanned 
 By Britain's zone. 
 
II. 
 
 Beyond the stars your sires rejoice 
 Who hear to-day this iron clang and rattle, 
 
 And they recall the Channel's voice 
 Which in old fights lent music to the battle, 
 
 For breath of Death can never smother 
 For them the voice when this bright bosom heaves 
 
 With pride of Her she guards — the Mother 
 
 For whom our Drake with many a brother 
 Won from the world the robe above all other 
 The proud sea weaves. 
 
III. 
 
 Therefore this sight is yours and ours 
 Whose fathers see it, wheresoe'er they dwell : 
 
 Not even the breath of Eden flowers 
 Can win them from the Channel's salt sweet smell; 
 
 And yonder skyey wings that hover 
 Kindling each steel-clad titan till he glows — 
 
 Wings of Old England's Angel-lover — 
 
 Your fathers see them shine above her — 
 They see our Angel of the Channel cover 
 Spithead with rose. 
 
IV. 
 
 With Kings that Angel learnt to fight : 
 Their hireling axes shivered in their helves : 
 
 His foe is now the people's spite 
 When bloody-minded nations kill themselves ; 
 
 But still, round England's sacred crags, 
 His billowy squadrons roll round her ye love. 
 
 Moving with glory of varying flags 
 
 With purple pennon's golden jags, 
 Mirrored from every cloud that flies or drags 
 Or streams above. 
 
V. 
 
 When foemen threat He smiles. He smiles ! 
 Yea, England's guardian angel stirs His wings — 
 
 Then out from furthest Scilly Isles, 
 Right on by Deal a glittering laughter springs, 
 
 As when of old His billowy host 
 Cried out "Ha ! ha ! they come, the ships of Spain! "- 
 
 As when that day around the coast 
 
 The news of Trafalgar was tossed 
 Ere yet His billows knew what England lost — 
 What man lay slain. 
 
VI. 
 
 The eyes of heroes light the Past : 
 The men who builded Time's heroic years, 
 
 Who quelled the world 'neath sail and mast, 
 Can see each armoured ship beyond the spheres — 
 
 Can see yon flag of curling smoke 
 From funnels of our Angel's Admiral Steam — 
 
 They talk of how the Armada broke 
 
 Against Britannia's shield of oak 
 Whilst there on wheels of storm with foam-flecked yoke 
 He drove his team. 
 
VII. 
 
 Your fathers grew to demi-gods 
 Breathing his breath, the same ye breathe to-day ; 
 
 And Drake, when fronting grievous odds 
 Drew strength from Channel wind and Channel spray ; 
 
 And, through that fateful August night 
 When Grenville read his name on flags of Death, 
 
 He saw, by love's high second-sight, 
 
 Far off beyond the monstrous fight, 
 The wings of England's Angel hovering bright 
 And felt His breath. 
 
VIII. 
 
 As if His guardian coursers heard 
 Prophetic strains from mystic harps of Ocean, 
 
 His mighty heart to-day is stirred. 
 Hearing your voice, to some sublime emotion 
 
 Which makes His pinions glow, and makes 
 The Channel heave as if the waters knew ; 
 
 Brothers, the hand of Evening shakes 
 
 A rosier haze through rosier flakes, 
 Because your Angel of the Channel wakes 
 To welcome you. 
 
IX. 
 
 And see ! — around that cloud-pavilion, 
 Gleaming above the sun's bright ocean-bed, 
 
 Where veils of evening grow vermilion, 
 Ancestral pictures, yours and ours, are spread ! 
 
 Those wings of His that glitter golden 
 Above the crests of Britain's iron steeds, — 
 
 Those wings of His could once embolden — 
 
 In mighty days beloved and olden — 
 Your god-like sires by whom they were beholden 
 To god-like deeds. 
 
When, strong as Death and swift as Death, 
 He let the Spanish galleons in — and moved — 
 
 Yea moved to smite with angry breath. 
 Till not a sail defiled the sea he loved — 
 
 That breath which nerved for gun and pike 
 Each English arm till in each English hand 
 
 All weapons, splinter, marlin spike 
 
 Or sprit or sword, were strong to strike 
 Such strokes no Spaniard ever saw the like 
 By sea or land. 
 
 ID 
 
XI. 
 
 They fought with England long ago ; 
 They strove with her whose gate the billows keep ; 
 
 On Channel chalk they sleep below — 
 In caverns of the great North Sea they sleep. 
 
 " Thus soldier, priest, and mariner," 
 He said, — our guardian angel said, — " shall perish ; 
 
 My deeps have still a sepulchre 
 
 For all whom envy or hate shall stir 
 To strike across them — strike at England, her 
 The billows cherish." 
 
 II 
 
JUBILEE GREETING AT SPITHEAD 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MEN OF GREATER BRITAIN. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 " ' British ' always has included all nationalities within 
 the mother-islands of the British Empire. '' 
 
 George Baden-Powell, Times, June i6, 1897. 
 
PART II. 
 
 I. 
 
 Earth's memory holds a living vision 
 Of all the sights she saw since time began ; 
 
 These shores record her slow transition 
 From age to age while yet she yearned for man ; 
 
 But when the Future makes a sign — 
 When Nature's mystic eyes prognosticate — 
 
 'Tis in the sunset halls that shine 
 
 Builded of cloud and air and brine : 
 Brothers, that untried fleet but makes me pine 
 To read her fate. 
 
 15 
 
II 
 
 Through this great age, with heights above 
 All other heights of England's Day save one — 
 
 Through this long reign of her we love 
 Hath England basked in Fortune's summer sun ; 
 
 But not then, e'en then, when heedless Time 
 Saw Stratford's truant boy read Avon's word. 
 
 Did England's path seem so sublime 
 
 As now, when out from every clime 
 Her children flock to hear the Channel-chime 
 Their fathers heard. 
 
 i6 
 
III. 
 
 Fools who believed themselves her friends, 
 And foes less dire than friends because of wrath, 
 
 Would turn her from her noble ends ; 
 But Nature's mystic finger traced her path : 
 
 Strife hath been hers, not oft with peers, 
 Her hand's far shadow quelled the savage foe, 
 
 Yet sometimes falling on mine ears. 
 
 Voices have vexed my soul with fears : 
 What sorrows in the womb of future years 
 Shall England know ? 
 
IV. 
 
 How shall she stand when round the world 
 
 Envy shall hiss — Hell's Cobra-de-Capello — 
 With flicker of tongue o'er folds half curled 
 
 Dull eyes of malice set in dingy yellow, 
 Baring her fangs, spreading her hood. 
 
 To strike our England, her whose stainless brand- 
 Whetted to slaughter Slaughter's broods 
 Uneager even for foeman's blood — 
 
 Strikes ever home but ever strikes for good, — 
 How shall she stand ? 
 
 i8 
 
Missing Page 
 
VI. 
 
 If but the thews of Englishmen 
 In Drake's great day were strong for every foe, 
 
 Shall England find her conqueror when 
 Not English thews alone deal England's blow, 
 
 When Scotland, that twin-sister, who. 
 Alone among the nations, met her might 
 
 With eyes unblenched, who ne'er withdrew 
 
 From battle till her heather's blue 
 Shone red with southron blood of men she slew, 
 Strengthens the fight ? 
 
 20 
 
VII. 
 
 When Ireland, once so fiercely brave 
 'Gainst England, standing now with many a scar 
 
 From many a fight on field and wave — 
 From Waterloo and Nile and Trafalgar — 
 
 Brings memories of the men who died 
 To keep two deathless Isles of Freedom fi-ee ; 
 
 When sons of three Great sisters ride 
 
 In those proud ships with equal pride 
 Ready for all the world and, side by side 
 Share Sovereignty. 
 
 21 
 
VIII. 
 
 This makes the billows leap along 
 With finer gallop — leap because they know 
 
 How love hath made the sisters strong 
 To meet the foe, though all the world be foe — 
 
 Because they hear another sound, 
 A girdle of music round the orb of waters — 
 
 Voices from those who, standing round 
 
 All shores where ocean waves rebound — 
 Stand there with British feet on British ground 
 Britannia's Daughters — 
 
 22 
 
IX. 
 
 Voices of those whose bond of love, 
 Binding them each to each o'er every sea, 
 
 Is love of Her whose pulses move 
 To peans of an Empire's Jubilee ; 
 
 Voices that come from distant lands — 
 From elfin halls where gem-crowned Africa 
 
 Opens at last her mystic hands, 
 
 And from that eldest born who stands 
 Between the world's two sister-ocean strands, 
 Great Canada ; 
 
 23 
 
X. 
 
 And from those sisters of the South, 
 Betrothed to stars of deeper soul than ours, 
 
 Whose young lips feel the mother's mouth, 
 Who still remember scent of English flowers : 
 
 New Zealand shedding, far away, 
 Fragrance of Albion o'er the vast expanse ; 
 
 Australias, round whose coral way 
 
 Pacific billows write in spray 
 A word in sunbeams on the gleaming day — 
 Faith's word, " Advance." 
 
 24 
 
XJ. 
 
 AH say, "Beloved Angel, Thou 
 Whose flag above Thy Channel ne'er is furled 
 
 Thine England's wider moat is now 
 Ocean, who lisps her name around the world ; 
 
 In Northern sun — in Southern sun , 
 True daughters, yea to very death, are we 
 
 Of her whose morn hath but begun — 
 
 Whose robe, our hero-fathers won — 
 That robe the great uniting Sea hath spun — 
 Her Subject Sea." 
 
 25 
 
FOUR SONNETS 
 
 TO THOSE WHO CARRY THE TONGUE OF 
 ShaKSPEARE round THE WORLD. 
 
ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA 
 
 THE PASSAGE TO ENGLAND 
 
 Yon albatross, whose stirless pinions follow 
 
 The ship through smile and frown of wind and weather. 
 
 Outsails, without the labour of a feather, 
 
 Each frigate-bird and gull and ocean-swallow. 
 
 Yes, while the sunny billows wake and wallow, 
 
 Now yellow as gold — now purple as flowering heather — 
 
 Now glassing all the hues of morn together — 
 
 In play rides he o'er steaming crest and hollow ! 
 
 Australia — ^thou whose flight shall still advance 
 
 On wings that never beat, yet never stay — 
 
 That win (like thine own bird's) the race in play^ — 
 
 Desert not thou, whatever winds of chance 
 
 May fret the changing waves of Time's expanse, 
 
 The ship that led thee on thy morning way ! 
 
 29 
 
ENGLAND STANDS ALONE 
 
 "England stands alone : without an ally." 
 
 A German Newspaper. 
 
 "She stands alone : ally nor friend has she," 
 
 Saith Europe of our England — her who bore 
 
 Drake, Blake, and Nelson — Warrior-Queen who wore 
 
 Light's conquering glaive that strike s the conquered free. 
 
 Alone ! — From Canada comes o'er the sea, 
 
 And from that English coast with coral shore. 
 
 The old-world cry Europe hath heard of yore 
 
 From Dover cliffs : " Ready, aye ready we ! " 
 
 "Europe," saith England, "hath forgot my boys ! — 
 
 Forgot how tall, in yonder golden zone 
 
 ' Neath Austral skies, my youngest born have grown 
 
 (Bearers of bayonets now and swords for toys) — 
 
 Forgot 'mid boltless thunder — harmless noise — 
 
 The sons with whom old England 'stands alone' ! " 
 
 30 
 
THE BREATH OF AVON 
 
 to english-speaking pilgrims on 
 shakspeare's birthday 
 
 I. 
 
 Whate'er of woe the Dark may hide in womb 
 For England, mother of kings of battle and song- 
 Rapine, or racial hate's mysterious wrong. 
 Blizzard of Chance, or fiery dart of Doom — 
 Let breath of Avon, rich of meadow-bloom, 
 Bind her to that great daughter sever'd long — 
 To near and far-oiF children young and strong — 
 "With fetters woven of Avon's flower perfume. 
 Welcome, ye English-speaking pilgrims, ye 
 Whose hands around the world are join'd by him. 
 Who make his speech the language of the sea. 
 Till winds of Ocean waft from rim to rim 
 The Breath of Avon : let this great day be 
 A Feast of Race no power shall ever dim. 
 
 31 
 
II. 
 
 From where the steeds of Earth's twin oceans toss 
 Their manes along Columbia's chariot-way ; 
 From where Australia's long blue billows play ; 
 From where the morn, quenching the Southern Cross, 
 Startling' the frigate-bird and albatross 
 Asleep in air, breaks over Table Bay — 
 Come hither, pilgrims, where these rushes sway 
 'Tween grassy banks of Avon soft as moss ! 
 For, if ye found the breath of Ocean sweet, 
 Sweeter is Avon's earthy, flowery smell, 
 Distill'd from roots that feel the coming spell 
 Of May, who bids all flowers that lov'd him meet 
 In meadows that, remembering Shakspeare's feet, 
 Hold still a dream of music where they fell. 
 
 32 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 5762. J8 1897 
 
 Jubilee greeting at Spithead to the men 
 
 3 1924 013 568 112