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Alfred Noyes

Song from Drake:  The Same Sun Is O'er Us II

The same Sun is o'er us,

The same Love shall find us,

The same and none other

Wherever we be;

With the same hope before us,

The same home behind us,

England, our mother,

Ringed round with the sea.


No land in the ring of it

Now, all around us

Only the splendid

Re-surging unknown;

How should we sing of it,

This that hath found us

By the great stars attended

At midnight, alone?


Our highway none knoweth,

Yet our blood hath discerned it!

Clear, clear is our path now

Whose foreheads are free,

Where the hurricane bloweth

Our spirits have learned it,

'Tis the highway of wrath, now,

The storm's way, the sea.


When the waters lay breathless

Gazing at Hesper

Guarding that glorious

Fruitage of gold,

Heard we the deathless

Wonderful whisper

We follow, victorious

To-night, as of old.


Ah, the broad miles of it

White with the onset

Of waves without number

Warring for glee;

Ah, the soft smiles of it

Down to the sunset,

Sacred for slumber

The swan's bath, the sea!


When the breakers charged thundering

In thousands all round us

With a lightning of lances

Up-hurtled on high,

When the stout ships were sundering

A rapture hath crowned us

Like the wild light that dances

On the crests that flash by.


Our highway none knoweth,

Yet our blood hath discerned it!

Clear, clear is our path now

Whose foreheads are free,

Where Euroclydon bloweth

Our spirits have learned it,

'Tis the highway of wrath, now,

The storm's way, the sea!


Who now will follow us

Where England's flag leadeth us,

Where gold not inveigles,

Nor statesmen betray?

Tho' the deep midnight swallow us,

Let her cry when she needeth us,

We return, her sea-eagles,

The hurricane's way.


For the same Sun is o'er us,

The same Love shall find us,

The same and none other

Wherever we be;

With the same hope before us,

The same home behind us,

England, our mother,

Ringed round with the sea