Briton,
sometimes,
As the fragrance of wet mignonette, or the scent of the
bee-haunted limes.

Ay, sweeter is manhood, though rough, than the smoothest
effeminate charms
To the old sea-king strain in our blood in the season of shocks
and alarms,
When the winds and the waves and the rocks make a chaos of danger
and strife;
And the need of the moment is pluck, and the guerdon of valour is
life.

That guerdon you've snatched from the teeth of the thundering
tiger-maw'd waves,
And the valour that smites is as naught, after all, to the valour
that saves.
They are safe on the shore, who had sunk in the whirl of the
floods but for _you_!
And some said you had lost your old grit and devotion! We knew
'twas not true.

The soft-hearted shore-going critics of conduct themselves would
not dare,
The trivial cocksure belittlers of dangers they have not to share,
Claim much--oh _so_ much, from rough manhood,--unflinching cool
daring in fray,
And selflessness utter, from toilers with little of praise, and
less pay.

Her heroes to get "on the cheap" from the rough rank and file of
her sons
Has been England's good fortune so long, that the scribblers'
swift tongue-babble runs
To the old easy tune without thought. "Gallant sea-dogs and
life-savers!" Yes!
But poor driblets of lyrical praise should not be their sole
guerdon, I guess.

On the coast, in the mine, at the fire, in the dark city byeways
at night,
They are ready the waves, or the flames, or the bludgeoning
burglar to fight.
And are _we_ quite as ready to mark, or to fashion a fitting reward
For the coarsely-clad commonplace men who our life and our
property guard?

A question _Punch_ puts to the Public, and on your behalf, my
brave lad,
And that of your labouring like. To accept your stout help we are
glad:
If supply of cheap heroes _should_ slacken, and life-saving valour
grow _dear_--
Say as courts, party-statesmen, or churches--'twould make some
exchequers look queer.

Do we quite do our part, we shore-goers? Those lights could not
flash through the fog,
And how often must rescuer willing lie idle on land like a log
For lack of the warning of coast-wire