Push hard across the sand, | |
For the salt wind gathers breath; | |
Shoulder and wrist and hand, | |
Push hard as the push of death. | |
The wind is as iron that rings, | |
The foam-heads loosen and flee; | |
It swells and welters and swings, | |
The pulse of the tide of the sea. | |
And up on the yellow cliff | |
10 | The long corn flickers and shakes; |
Push, for the wind holds stiff, | |
And the gunwale dips and rakes. | |
Good hap to the fresh fierce weather, | |
The quiver and beat of the sea! | |
While three men hold together, | |
The kingdoms are less by three. | |
Out to the sea with her there, | |
Out with her over the sand; | |
Let the kings keep the earth for their share! | |
20 | We have done with the sharers of land. |
They have tied the world in a tether, | |
They have bought over God with a fee; | |
While three men hold together, | |
The kingdoms are less by three. | |
We have done with the kisses that sting, | |
The thief’s mouth red from the feast, | |
The blood on the hands of the king | |
And the lie at the lips of the priest. | |
Will they tie the winds in a tether, | |
30 | Put a bit in the jaws of the sea? |
While three men hold together, | |
The kingdoms are less by three. | |
Let our flag run out straight in the wind! | |
The old red shall be floated again | |
When the ranks that are thin shall be thinned, | |
When the names that were twenty are ten; | |
When the devil’s riddle is mastered | |
And the galley-bench creaks with a Pope, | |
We shall see Buonaparte the bastard | |
40 | Kick heels with his throat in a rope. |
While the shepherd sets wolves on his sheep | |
And the emperor halters his kine, | |
While Shame is a watchman asleep | |
And Faith is a keeper of swine, | |
Let the wind shake our flag like a feather, | |
Like the plumes of the foam of the sea! | |
While three men hold together, | |
The kingdoms are less by three. | |
All the world has its burdens to bear, | |
50 | From Cayenne to the Austrian whips; |
Forth, with the rain in our hair | |
And the salt sweet foam in our lips; | |
In the teeth of the hard glad weather, | |
In the blown wet face of the sea; | |
While three men hold together, | |
The kingdoms are less by three. |