Till Gable clears his iron sides
And Bowfell's wrinkled front appears,
And Scawfell's clustered might derides
The menace of the marching years.
The tall men of that noble land
Who share such high companionship,
Are scorners of the feeble hand,
Contemners of the faltering lip.
When all the ancient truths depart,
In every strait that men confess,
Stands in the stubborn Cumbrian heart
The spirit of that steadfastness.
In quiet valleys of the hills
The humble grey stone crosses lie,
And all day long the curlew shrills
And all day long the wind goes by.
But on some stifling alien plain
The flesh of Cumbrian men is thrust
In shallow pits, and cries in vain
To mingle with its kindred dust.
Yet those make death a little thing
Who know the settled works of God,
Winds that heard Latin watchwords ring
From ramparts where the Roman trod.
Stars that beheld the last King's crown
Flash in the steel-grey mountain tarn,
And ghylls that cut the live rock down
Before Kings ruled in Ispahan.
And when the sun at even dips
And Sabbath bells are sad and sweet,
When some wan Cumbrian mother's lips
Pray for the son they shall not greet,
As falls that sudden dew of grace
Which makes for her the riddle plain,
The South wind blows to our own place,
And we shall see the hills again.
("Edward Melbourne") William Noel Hodgson