Poems: New and Old (Newbolt)/The Service
The Service
The British Navy—all our years have beenStrong in the pride of it, secure, serene.But who, remembering wars of long ago,Knew what to our Sea-walls we yet should owe?Who thought to see the hand of shameless shameWith scraps of paper set the world aflame,Barbarian hordes upon a neighbouring coastRape, massacre, enslave, blaspheme and boast,And savage monsters, lurking under sea,Murder the wives and children of the free?If in this battle with a power accurstWe have risked all and yet escaped the worst,Thanks be to those who gave us ships and gunsWhen generous folly still would trust in Huns;Thanks be to those who trained upon the deepThe valour and the skill that never sleep;Thanks above all to those who fight our fightFor Britain's honour and for all men's right.
And now away! away! put off with meFrom this dear island to the open sea:Enter those floating ramparts on the foamWhere exiled seamen guard their long-lost home:Enter and ask—except of child or wife—Ask the whole secret of their ordered life. Their wisdom has three words, unwrit, untold,But handed down from heart to heart of old:The first is this: while ships are ships the aimOf every man aboard is still the same.On land there's something men self-interest call,Here each must save himself by saving all.Your danger's mine: who thinks to stand asideWhen the ship's buffeted by wind and tide?If she goes down, we know that we go too—Not just the watch on deck, but all the crew.Mark now what follows—no half-willing workFrom minds divided or from hands that shirk,But that one perfect freedom, that contentWhich comes of force for something greater spent,And welds us all, from conning tower to keel,In one great fellowship of tempered steel.
The third is like to these:—there is no peaceIn the sea-life, our warfare does not cease.The great emergency in which we strainWith all our force, our passion and our pain,Is no mere transient fight with hostile kings,But mortal war against immortal things—Danger and Death themselves, whose end shall beWhen there is no more wind and no more sea.
What of this sea-born wisdom? Is it notTruth that on land we have too long forgotWhile this great ship the Commonwealth's afloatAre we not seamen all, and in one boat? Have we not all one freedom, lost and foundWhen to one service body and soul are bound?And is not life itself, if seen aright,A great emergency, an endless fightFor all men's native land, and worth the priceOf all men's service and their sacrifice?
Ah! had we that sea-wisdom, could we steerBy those same stars for even half the year,How plain would seem, as viewed from armoured decks,The problems that our longshore hearts perplex!Less than his uttermost then none would give,More than his just reward would none receive,No! nor desire it, for to feast or hoardWhile the next table shows a hungry board,Whatever modern landmade laws may sayIs not the custom of Trafalgar's Bay.The Brotherhood, the Service, Life at War,These are the bonds that hold where heroes are,These only make the men who weary not,The men who fall rejoicing, self-forgot.
Come back to that unfading afternoon.Where Jutland echoes to the First of JuneAnd Beatty raging with a lion's mightRoars out his heart to keep the foe from flight.The Grand Fleet comes at last; the day is ours;Mile beyond mile the line majestic towers:The battle bends: Hood takes the foremost placeWith the grand manner of his famous race, Beats off the giant Hindenburg, and thenGoes down, pursuing still, with all his men.Not all!—out yonder where the sun shall setFour last Invincibles are floating yet,Abandoned, doomed, but cheering to the lastAs dreadnought after dreadnought thunders past:Cheering for joy to see, though they must die,The van of Life-victorious sweeping by.
My friends, I do not ask for men like theseA little dole, a little time of ease.For them and all who love them, all who mourn,And all that to their faith shall yet be born,I ask you this—take them for what they are,Your Comrades in the Service, Life at War.