What is the Flag of England? Winds of the world, declare !
The North Wind blew: "From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disco Floe;By the great north lights above me, I work the will of God,And the liner splits on the ice-field, or the Dogger fills with cod.
"I barred my gates with iron. I shuttered my doors withflame,Because, to force my ramparts, your nutshell navies came;I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast,And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed.
"The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night.
The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the northernlight;What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare,Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!"The South Wind sighed : "From the Virgins, my mid-sea course was ta"enOver a thousand islands lost in an idle main,Where the sea-egg flames on the coral, and the long- backed breakers croonTheir endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon.
"Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys,I waked the palms to laughter, I tossed the scud in the breeze;Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.
"I have wrenched it free from the halliard, to hang for a wisp on the Horn;I have chased it north to the Lizard ribboned and rolled and torn;I have spread its folds o"er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea;I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free.
"My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross, Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the SouthernCross.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare, Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!"The East Wind roared: " From the Kuriles. the Bitter Seas.
I come.
And me men call the Home-wind, for I bring the English home.
Look-look well to your shipping ! By the breath of my mad typhoon.
I swept your close-packed prays and beached your best at Kowloon!
"The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before, I raped your richest roadstead-I plundered Singapore! I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose;And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows.
"Never the lotus closes, never the wild-fowl wake,But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for Eng- land"s sake-Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid-Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed.
"The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows,The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare, Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there !"The West Wind called: " In squadrons the thoughtlessgalleons flyThat bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die,They make my might their porter, they make my house their path,Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath.
"I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole.
They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll,For day is a drifting terror, till I raise the shroud with my breath,And they see strange bows above them, and the two go locked to death.
"But, whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day,I heave them whole to the conger, or rip their plates away, First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky, Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by.
"The dead, dumb fog hath wrapped it, the frozen dews have kissed,The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare,Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!"Abridged from the poem by Rudyard Kipling,in Barrack Room Ballads
Author.-Rudyard Kipling, English author, (1865-1936). He travelled China, Japan, America, Africa, and Australasia. The most famous of his numerous publications are Barrack Room Ballads, The Seven Seas (verse), The Jungle Book (prose), Stalky and Co. (prose), Kim (prose), Just So Stories (prose), Puck of Peek" s Hill (prose), and Rewards and Fairies (prose).
General Notes.-The English Flag, or Union Jack, shows the three crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, in combination, denoting the union of England, Scotland, and Ireland; displayed on a blue field for the navy and a red field for the army. Look up Bergen, in Norway. The Discoe Floe is in Davis Strait, west of Greenland; The Dogger Bank is a fishing ground in the North Sea. Are the " gates ofiron" the ice, and is the " flame" the Aurora Borealis? Find the Virgins in the British West Indies Keys are low islands or reefs off the southern coast of Florida. Find halliard in the dictionary, and connect it with haul. A praya is a raised drive or promenade along a shore or river bank. Look up Horn; Lizard; Kuriles (north of Japan); Kowloon (near Hong Kent); Singapore; Hoogli. Comment on the phrase " on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed." The conger is a large sea-eel, sometimes 8 feet long. Pick out your favourite line-the most graphic, the most forcible. Make a list of the countries to which Mr. Kipling refers in his poem. What human qualities have helped to build up the greatness of the British Empire? Illustrate with examples.
