Explore "Greater Britain" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Our hearts were not set on fighting, / We did not pant for the fray, / And whatever wrongs need righting, / We would not have met that way. / But the way that has opened before us / Leads on thro' a blood-red field; / And we swear by the great God o'er us, / We will die, but we will not yield.
The battle is not of our making, / And war was never our plan; / Yet, all that is sweet forsaking, / We march to it, man by man. / It is either to smite, or be smitten, / There's no other choice to-day; / And we live, as befits the Briton, / Or we die, as the Briton may.
We were not fashioned for cages, / Or to feed from a keeper's hand; / Our strength which has grown thro' ages / Is the strength of a slave-free land. / We cannot kneel down to a master, / To our God alone can we pray; / And we stand in this world disaster, / To fight, like a lion at bay.