What Shall I Do For The Land That Bred Me

Gerard Manley Hopkins

What shall I do for the land that bred me,
Her homes and fields that folded and fed me?—
Be under her banner and live for her honour:
Under her banner I’ll live for her honour.
  CHORUS.  Under her banner live for her honour.

Not the pleasure, the pay, the plunder,
But country and flag, the flag I am under—
There is the shilling that finds me willing
To follow a banner and fight for honour.
  CH.  We follow her banner, we fight for her honour.

Call me England’s fame’s fond lover,
Her fame to keep, her fame to recover.
Spend me or end me what God shall send me,
But under her banner I live for her honour.
  CH.  Under her banner we march for her honour.

Where is the field I must play the man on?
O welcome there their steel or cannon.
Immortal beauty is death with duty,
If under her banner I fall for her honour.
  CH.  Under her banner we fall for her honour.

Next 10 Poems

• Alfred Edward Housman : 1887
• Alfred Edward Housman : Along The Field As We Came By
• Alfred Edward Housman : As Through The Wild Green Hills Of Wyre
• Alfred Edward Housman : Be Still, My Soul, Be Still
• Alfred Edward Housman : Be Still, My Soul, Be Still; The Arms You Bear Are Brittle
• Alfred Edward Housman : Bredon Hill
• Alfred Edward Housman : Bring, In This Timeless Grave To Throw
• Alfred Edward Housman : Clunton And Clunbury
• Alfred Edward Housman : Could Man Be Drunk Forever
• Alfred Edward Housman : Diffugere Nives ( Horace, Odes 4.7 )

Previous 10 Poems

• Gerard Manley Hopkins : What Being In Rank-old Nature Should Earlier Have That Breath Been
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : What Being In Rank-old Nature
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Tom's Garland
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : To What Serves Mortal Beauty?
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : To Seem The Stranger Lies My Lot, My Life
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : To R. B.
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : To His Watch
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : To Him Who Ever Thought With Love Of Me
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : To A Young Child
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord, If I Contend