Littell's Living Age/Volume 173/Issue 2244/Plymouth Harbor - Sunday

by H. D. Rawnsley

Is it not well that England sends her sons
From such proud harbors, such fair haunts as these,
To wage their battle with the roaring seas,
And shout for victory with their cloudy guns;
Here where the shifting wall of white foam runs
Forever Soundward, where baronial trees
Blend the waves' whisper with the hum of bees
And sweet church bells ring down their benisons?
Yes, when the sailor's heart is strung for fight,
Thou, Edgecumbe, shall be present in that hour,
The Hoe and Hamoaze, clear before his sight,
Shall nerve his arm and lend his spirit power;
And if he fall, yet falling will he smile,
Dead for the love of this his native isle.