Classic Poem

I.

Aye! luckless lads prove liars
In all breaths but their last,
And carnivals of laughter
One sigh shall counterblast,
As oft the truant scholar
To Shropshire chaps forecast.

But as I walked by Quatford
I shouted to the stream:
Deep are your wells, O Severn,
Deep those of Corve and Teme;
But I draw deeper sources
They issue from Death's seam.

II.

From Buildwas on to Bristol
The Severn's bluffs rise red
Like forts steeped in the river
Where either host has bled —
Blood consecrated altars
Where Wales with England wed.

Saxon with Celt was wedded
And gave thereto his hand,
And though the Norman conquered
Wales with this eastern land,
The pact between the peoples
Stood and shall ever stand.

I do not ask the German
What flesh is joined with his,
Or if the blood of Brutus
To-day be Italy's:
I am proud, being British,
Of all my ancestries.