In The Battle Silences: Poems Written At The Front

by Frederick George Scott

 

MONTENEGRO

 
WHO hath betrayed thee, England? Who hath tied
    Thy mighty hands and lulled thy heart to sleep?
    Dost thou not hear, borne through the starless deep,
From shores inviolate and mountain side,
The death-cry of a race which had defied
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    The invader’s foot for centuries and did keep,
    In lonely vales and on the cragged steep,
Her trust with freedom in immortal pride?

O England, rouse thee from this sleep of death.
    Now is the day of doom, the fateful hour.
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        Faint not and falter not, England, my Queen.
Close at thine ear, the sleepless ocean saith:
    “Not for thyself God gave me as thy dower;
        Thy trust is world-wide, and hath ever been.”