Out across the drifted sands
With your friends, the fairy-folk,
I can see you linking hands—
Ring-a-rosy round the oak.
Where the lark his rapture tells,
Swinging up into the blue,
Merrily you ring the bells
Of the fox-glove tall as you,
Housed with peace among the flowers
In the haunts that once we knew.
In far happier times than ours,
With no thought of battle-smoke,
Or of British hearts that broke.
Out beyond the shimmering waves
Of your blue, encircling sea,
Lie in nameless, foreign graves
They who kept your England free.
When you watch the wheeling stars
On soft, Summer-scented nights,
With no memory that mars,
Only English sounds and sights,
(Only infinite delights!),
Pray that every British heart
In the years that are to be,
Play the honest British part,
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