Volume 2 — From England
Reading edition
By MAURICE HEWLETT.
[From King Albert's Book.]
O men of mickle heart and little speech,
Slow, stubborn countrymen of heath and plain,
Now have ye shown these insolent again
That which to Caesar's legions ye could teach,
That slow-provok'd is long-provok'd. May each
Crass Caesar learn this of the Keltic grain,
Until at last they reckon it in vain
To browbeat us who hold the Western reach.
For even as you are, we are, ill to rouse,
Rooted in Custom, Order, Church, and King;
And as you fight for their sake, so shall we,
Doggedly inch by inch, and house by house;
Seeing for us, too, there's a dearer thing
Than land or blood—and that thing Liberty.