Newfoundland's Gift

Gifts from a full garner - wealth from a brimming store - How shall these things be offered from a sea-girt land and poor? I - who have neither gold nor jewels, cattle nor corn - I (says Newfoundland) give the lads I have borne! Toll o' the Banks when the white fog spins a shroud there, Toll o' the Gulf when the Fundy gales are loud there, Toll o' the ice-pack grinding south by Labrador - These things I have paid . . . yet will not grudge my part in war. Bone o' my bone - and bitter pain I bare them! Blood o' my blood - oh, it's cruel hard to spare them! Splendid sons of seamen - more than life to me - No new thing is sacrifice to them which use the sea! Salt is the sea-crust on our land's wave-fretted shore; Salt, salt seas, they bring our seamen home no more, Salt, salt winds, they'll blow them home no more to me - Well we know the taste of it whose menfolk use the sea! Bone o' my heart - and the salt sad tides roll over them; Heart o' my heart - oh, the wide, cold seas 'll cover them! Gold and gear I give not . . . life and love and all to me, These I give to England . . . to England and the sea!