Holiday and Other Poems Author:John Davidson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MERRY ENGLAND Island-kingdom, our island-state, Merry England, where fancy dwells In pageant, pilgrimage, high debate, And sprightly music of morris-bells... more »; Tourneys for love and battles for hate; Torches, garlands, exultant bells— Challenging trumpets and festal bells; Wars of the Roses, land-locked strife, World-wide wars with France and Spain: The colour and pulse of that gallant life— Shall we never recover the mood again ? Rhythmic deeds, melodious words:— Merry England, the heart of mirth :— Songs of lovers and songs of birds; A bell for death and a bell for birth— Jubilant fifths and sombre thirds: Pessimist ? Optimist ?—death and birth ! Englishmen only on English earth ! Confident daring, travail and strife, Battle and storm on the Spanish Main— How shall the fancy that donned that life Be decked and renewed with such pride again ? England's fancy shall live again— Merry England across the seas !— Jewelled with isles of the Spanish Main, Gifts of the opulent destinies: England's heart and England's brain, Throbbing and thinking in many seas Belov'd of the opulent destinies. Bluebird, oriole, bobolink, Hark to them, hear them how they sing, Where England's Canadians work and think, Woo and wed in the throng of Spring! Axes ring on the mountain-sides— England's gain from England's loss !— Lonely at night the ranchman rides, Humming a tune to the Southern Cross; Argosies on Austral tides, From Charles's Wain to the Southern Cross, Barter the Plough for the Southern Cross ! Lord ! how the English hew their way, Courage and fortune leading the van ! Round the world with the break of day, Room for him, room for the Englishman ! Saxon, Norman, Dansker, Celt— Merry England, mother of mi...« less