Muse, who art quick to fire
At the least noble thing,
And frankest praise to bring
Upon the quivering lyre,
Why art thou slow to sing
Now, when the world beclouds
With battle such as shrouds
Earth in a mist of tears?
For want of heart belike,
While thunder sings afar,
And even the bravest fears.
Seek’st thou a theme for song,
No fear can ever wrong,
No tears can tarnish–strike,
And sing Britannia.
Britannia the fair,
Whom oceans girdle round
With hill and valley crowned
And purest wash of air
From her Atlantic bound,
What heaths so fresh as hers
With blossom ? And how stirs
The soft wind in her pines!
Earth’s fairest isle, ’tis said,
Where all things lovely are;
Yet beauty there not mines
Strength, for no cliff is there,
No headland calmly fair
But fringed with wild spray wed
To shout Britannia.
Britannia the strong,
Whom God designed should queen
The ocean plain serene,
Though threatning foes bethrong,
Whose fate shall not be long,
While round her, every deck
Bristling with cannon, speck
The seas her angry fleet.
Not earth to dominate,
Nor to embroil with war,
Tower they: ’tis to keep sweet
The world’s dear peace, they bulk
So with their silent hulk
In all eyes power, elate
To speak Britannia.
Britannia the free,
Of soil so virtuous, such
No foot of slave can touch
But walks at liberty;
The staff she is, the crutch
By whom weak lands arise,
Who, nourished in her eyes,
Grow and shake off the sloth
Of old anarchic power.
Two richly tokens are
Of her boon influence both.
What man of Ind or Nile
That sees his fat fields smile,
But his lips burst aflower
To praise Britannia?
Britannia the sage,
With her own history wise!
The stars were her allies
To write that ample page.
‘Twas her adventurous eyes
The vantage saw, whence she
To this wide regency
Through acts adventurous won;
And if from strife and jar
She keep, the secret learn
From her mild brow alone
How not the world to daunt
Or power imperial flaunt ;
She makes the queen’d earth yearn
To serve Britannia.
Britannia the good,
With her own heart at school,
Whom flatterer cannot fool
Nor rebels sour, at flood
Her own strength taught to rule.
Hers are the mighty hands
Which o’er a hundred lands
Weave good from dawn to grey;
Like fond words from afar
3ers are the winged sails
O’er ocean, words are they
Which in a moment bring
Her brood beneath her wing;
And none so small that fails
To knit Britannia.
Britannia wide flung
Over the globe, its half
Her children, whether graff
Or scion mother-sprung
Sons, now to be her staff
When her path glooms, though Rhine,
Danube, and Elbe combine,
Of these, O idlest dream!
To reave her. Hers they are,
Roused ardent in her right
From Ganges utmost stream
Far as Canadian firs
And bush Australian; hers
Joined now in Hell’s despite
To help Britannia.
Britannia, the heart
And brain, which bulwarks power,
See at the crucial hour
How well she bears her part!
From fields how peaceful flower
In millions, arms and men,
Which now she pours again
To those old battle fields,
France, Flanders ; makes her star
Of glory, that she shields
The weak, confronts the strong.
Brute force let us others sing;
She shows in everything
To her it shall belong
To be—Britannia.
Britannia sublime,
To flame in generous deed,
In others’ cause to bleed!
So to the end of time
It shall be. Once she freed
The Iberian ; Wellington
And Torres Vedras spun
The lines of victory then:
Another Trafalgar
The bleak north seas await,
Where her fleet towers the main
Each mighty battleship
Charged to the ‘very lip
With thunder. Big with fate
They loom, Britannia.
(Manmohan Ghose)
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