A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/Canada to England

by Marjorie Pickthall

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CANADA

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CANADA TO ENGLAND

GREAT names of thy great captains gone before
Beat with our blood who have that blood of thee:
Raleigh and Grenville, Wolfe, and all the free
Fine souls who dared to front a world in war.
Such only may outreach the envious years
Where feebler crowns and fainter stars remove,
Nurtured in one remembrance and one love
Too high for passion and too stern for tears.

O little isle our fathers held for home,
Not, not alone thy standards and thy hosts
Lead where thy sons shall follow, Mother Land:
Quick as the north wind, ardent as the foam,
Behold, behold the invulnerable ghosts
Of all past greatnesses about thee stand.

Marjorie L. C. Pickthall