The Two Noises - Page 2

or that fine though unwritten poem, "Wait till the Bull Dog
gets a bite of you." Now, I for one detest Imperialism,
but I have a great deal of sympathy with Jingoism.
And there seemed something so touching about this unbroken
and innocent bragging under the brutal menace of Nature
that it made, if I may so put it, two tunes in my mind.
It is so obvious and so jolly to be optimistic about England,
especially when you are an optimist--and an Englishman.
But through all that glorious brass came the voice
of the invasion, the undertone of that awful sea.
I did a foolish thing. As I could not express my meaning
in an article, I tried to express it in a poem--a bad one.
You can call it what you like. It might be called "Doubt,"
or "Brighton." It might be called "The Patriot," or yet
again "The German Band." I would call it "The Two Voices,"
but that title has been taken for a grossly inferior poem.
This is how it began--

"They say the sun is on your knees
A lamp to light your lands from harm,
They say you turn the seven seas
To little brooks about your farm.
I hear the sea and the new song
that calls you empress all day long.

"(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie
Dying in swamps--you shall not die,
Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust,
Your poor are chased about like dust,
Emptied of anger and surprise--
And God has gone out of their eyes,
Your cohorts break--your captains lie,
I say to you, you shall not die.)"

Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there
is an English country that the Imperialists have never found.
The British Empire may annex what it likes, it will never annex England.
It has not even discovered the island, let alone conquered it.
I took up the two tunes again with a greater sympathy for the first--

"I know the bright baptismal rains,
I love your tender troubled skies,
I know your little climbing lanes,
Are peering into Paradise,
From open hearth to orchard cool,
How bountiful and beautiful.

"(O throttled and without a cry,
O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die,
The frightful word is on your walls,
The east sea to the west sea calls,
The stars are dying in the sky,
You shall not die; you shall not die.)"

Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the
peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England.
It is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely
and at random--

"I see you how you smile in state
Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar,
You need not tell me you are great,
I know how more than great you are.