There is scarlet on his forehead, <br />There are scars across his face, <br />’Tis the bloody dew of battle dripping down, dripping down, <br />But the war-heart of the Lion <br />Turns to iron in its place <br />When he halts to face disaster, when he turns to meet disgrace, <br />Stung and keen and mettled with the life-blood of his own. <br />Let the hunters ’ware who flout him, <br />When he calls his whelps about him, <br />When he sets the goal before him and he settles to the pace. <br />Tricked and wounded! Are we beaten <br />Though they hold our strength at play? <br />We have faced these things aforetimes, long ago, long ago. <br />From sunlit Sydney Harbour <br />And ten thousand miles away, <br />From the far Canadian forests to the Sounds of Milford Bay, <br />They have answered, they have answered, and we know the answer now. <br />From the Britains such as these <br />Strewn across the world-wide seas <br />Comes the rally and the bugle-note that makes us one to-day. <br /> <br />Beaten! Let them come against us. <br />We can meet them one and all. <br />We have faced the World aforetimes, not in vain, not in vain. <br />Twice ten thousand hearths be widowed, <br />Twice ten thousand hearts may fall, <br />But a million voices answer: “We are ready for the call; <br />And the sword we draw for Justice shall not see its sheath again, <br />Nor our cannon cease to thunder <br />Till we break their strength asunder, <br />And the Lion’s whelps are round him and the Old Flag over all.”<br /><br />George Essex Evans<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lion-s-whelps/
