Songs of the Fleet - The Song of the Guns at Sea

    Oh hear!    Oh hear!
    Across the sullen tide
    Across the echoing dome horizon-wide
    What pulse of fear
    Beats with tremendous boom!
    What call of instant doom,
    With thunderstroke of terror and of pride,
    With urgency that may not be denied,
    Reverberates upon the heart's own drum
    Come! . . .    Come! . . . for thou must come!

    Come forth, O Soul!
    This is thy day of power.
    This is the day and this the glorious hour
    That was the goal
    Of thy self-conquering strife.
    The love of child and wife,
    The fields of Earth and the wide ways of Thought--
    Did not thy purpose count them all as nought
    That in this moment thou thyself mayst give
    And in thy country's life for ever live?


    Therefore rejoice
    That in thy passionate prime
    Youth's nobler hope disdained the spoils of Time
    And thine own choice
    Fore-earned for thee this day.
    Rejoice! rejoice to obey
    In the great hour of life that men call Death
    The beat that bids thee draw heroic breath,
    Deep-throbbing till thy mortal heart be dumb
    Come! . . .    Come! . . . the time is come!

Henry John Newbolt

Sir Henry John Newbolt was an English poet and author, famous for his ballads such as 'Vitaï Lampada'. He graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar, but he is better remembered for his literary contributions than his legal career. Newbolt served as a government advisor on military and naval literature during World War I. He was knighted in 1915 for his services to literature. Newbolt's work often reflected themes of patriotism and duty.

Henry John Newbolt

To Edward Fitzgerald

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

The Schoolfellow

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Væ Victis

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

To Clare

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Songs of the Fleet - Sailing at Dawn

    One by one the pale stars die before the day now,
        One by one the great ships are stirring from their sleep,
    Cables all are rumbling, anchors all a-weigh now,
        Now the fleet's a fleet again, gliding towards the deep.

            Now the fleet's a fleet again, bound upon the old ways,
                Splendour of the past comes shining in the spray;
            Admirals of old time, bring us on the bold ways!
                Souls of all the sea-dogs, lead the line to-day!

    Far away behind us town and tower are dwindling,
        Home becomes a fair dream faded long ago;
    Infinitely glorious the height of heaven is kindling,
        Infinitely desolate the shoreless sea below.

            Now the fleet's a fleet again, bound ...

Henry John Newbolt

Songs of the Fleet - Farewell
Mother, with unbowed head
Hear thou across the sea
The farewell of the dead,
The dead who died for thee.
Greet them again with tender words and grave,
For, saving thee, themselves they could not save.

To keep the house unharmed
Their fathers built so fair,
Deeming endurance armed
Better than brute despair,
They found the secret of the word that saith,
"Service is sweet, for all true life is death."

So greet thou well thy dead
Across the homeless sea,
And be thou comforted
Because they died for thee.
Far off they served, but now their deed is done
For evermore their life and thine are one.
Henry John Newbolt

The Phantom Fleet
(1904)

The sunset lingered in the pale green West:
In rosy wastes the low soft evening star
Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;
And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.

But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes
The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call,
And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains,
The printed ships that decked the parlour wall.

From oaken frames old admirals looked down:
They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet:
They saw the paper, headed Talk from Town;
Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet:

And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song
Of England laughing in the face of war,
With eyes unconquerably proud and strong,
And lips triumpha...
Alfred Noyes

Songs of the Fleet - The Middle Watch
In a blue dusk the ship astern
Uplifts her slender spars,
With golden lights that seem to burn
Among the silver stars.
Like fleets along a cloudy shore
The constellations creep,
Like planets on the ocean floor
Our silent course we keep.

And over the endless plain,
Out of the night forlorn
Rises a faint refrain,
A song of the day to be born--
Watch, oh watch till ye find again
Life and the land of morn.

From a dim West to a dark East
Our lines unwavering head,
As if their motion long had ceased
And Time itself were dead.

Vainly we watch the deep below,
Vain...
Henry John Newbolt

Songs of the Fleet - The Little Admiral
Stand by to reckon up your battleships
Ten, twenty, thirty, there they go.
Brag about your cruisers like Leviathans--
A thousand men a-piece down below.
But here's just one little Admiral
We're all of us his brothers and his sons,
And he's worth, O he's worth at the very least
Double all your tons and all your guns.

Stand by, etc.

See them on the forebridge signalling--
A score of men a-hauling hand to hand,
And the whole fleet flying like the wild geese
Moved by some mysterious command.
Where's the mighty will that shows the way to them,
The mind that sees ahead so quick and clear?
He's there, Sir, walking all alone there--
...
Henry John Newbolt

Songs of the Fleet - The Song of the Sou' Wester
The sun was lost in a leaden sky,
And the shore lay under our lee;
When a great Sou' Wester hurricane high
Came rollicking up the sea.
He played with the fleet as a boy with boats
Till out for the Downs we ran,
And he laugh'd with the roar of a thousand throats
At the militant ways of man:

Oh! I am the enemy most of might,
The other be who you please!
Gunner and guns may all be right,
Flags a-flying and armour tight,
But I am the fellow you've first to fight--
The giant that swings the seas.

A dozen of middies were down below
Chasing the X they love,
While the table curtseyed long and slow
An...
Henry John Newbolt