Nation and Patriotism

next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth

If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is forever England.

The land was ours before we were the land’s. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people.

I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor.

Was it for this the wild geese spread The gray wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live?

Take up the White Man’s burden, 4 Send forth the best ye breed— Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need.

Lesser breeds without the Law.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

The tumult and the shouting dies; The captains and the kings depart.

God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle line, Beneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!

And what should they know of England who only England know?

’Ave you ’eard o’ the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on ’er ’ead?

So ’ere’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ’ome in the Soudan; You’re a pore benighted ’eathen but a first-class fightin’ man.

We aren’t no thin red ’eroes.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck ’im out, the brute!” But it’s “Savior of ’is country” when the guns begin to shoot.

They rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid.

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

O Ireland, isn’t it grand you look— Like a bride in her rich adornin’? And with all the pent-up love of my heart I bid you the top o’ the mornin’!

For he might have been a Roosian, A French or Turk or Proosian, Or perhaps Itali-an. But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman.

It is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.

He is an Englishman! For he himself has said it, And it’s greatly to his credit, That he is an Englishman!

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.

One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.