RECONDITIONING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21988, 24 June 1933, Page 16

RECONDITIONING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

By C. E. Allen. In view of the fact that his Majesty the King has approved of certain alterations or emendations in' the musical setting of the National Anthem, it may be interesting to reflect upon the genesis of the words which the familiar tune carries. It will be allowed by most, one would think, that the setting is moro than worthy of the lyric. In that interesting volume, “ England, the Unknown Isle,” an Austrian writer, who was a prisoner of war in Great Britain, pays the British people many compliments which many of the British people themselves would be inclined to repudiate. Still, it is refreshing to reflect that wlfat are tiresome Conventions to many of us are solemn facts to this observant foreigner. In one matter, however, he is surely right. The English are prone to compromise. In our National Anthem we display the same conservative tendency to cling to a compromise as we display in many other respects. Considered dispassionately, our National Anthem, as a lyric, is about as uninspired and pedestrian a piece of work as one may find in a day’s march. One of our greatest poets of modern times, James Elroy Flecker, contemporary of- Rupert Brooke, who died of .consumption at Daves and not of sunstroke at Lemnos, thus making no appeal to our inherent love of the picturesque, essayed the task of supplying the English people with a lyric that would be worthy of the setting, and of the occasion. Here are the stanzas he wrote. I cannot say whethei he ever_ actually submitted them as an alternative to our familiar verses, which are neither free verse since they are not, free, nor rhyming verses, since they do not rhyme. God, save our Gracious King, Nation and State and King, God save the King! Grant him the 'Peace divine, But If his Wars be Thine Flash on our fighting line Victory's Wing! Thou in his suppliant hands Hast placed such Mighty Lands; Save Thou our IClng! As once from golden skies Rebels with flaming eyes. So the King’s Enemies Doom Thou and fling! Mountains that break the night Holds He by eagle right Stretching far Wing! Dawn lands for Youth to reap, . Dim lands where Empires sleep, His! And the Lion Deep Roars for the King. But most these few dear miles Of sweetly meadowed Isles, — . England all Spring; Scotland that by the marge Where the blank North doth charge Hears Thy voice loud and large— Save, and their King! Grace on the golden Dales Of Thine old Christian Wales Shower till they sing, . Till Erin’s Island lawn .Echoes the dulcet-drawn Song with a cry of dawn— God save the King! This is not Flecker at. his best, hut it ig surely better than our present lyric in which “Politics” is forced into marriage with “ fix ” and “ over us " with “victorious/’ It is improbable that the lyric as it stands will ever be replaced. It is a kind of desideratum of a national song that it should be a bad one. The promoters of recent national song competition in Australia would give that hasty generalisation the lie. Out of hundreds of poems submitted they could not find one that came up to the required standard. The search for the Australian National Anthem has, therefore, been postponed for a year, and tbe Sydney Bulletin has carried out its obligation by awarding the prize to an Australian writer, who managed with some skill to include the principal features "of his native country without being unduly banal. It is curious to reflect that “ Land of Hope end Glory " was the work of Arthur Christopher Benson, with whom one associates dalliance at a college window rather than aggressive Imperialism. Yet hear Mr Benson in the following line; “God Who made us mighty, make, us mightier yet.” This reminds one of the song of our schooldays, “ We’re getting it by degrees." “Land of Hope and Glory” has been superimposed upon the British people. To the present, writer-it has never seemed consonant with the English genius,' It is the work of two cloistered minds, that, of Benson and of Elgar. National songs come to life fortuitously, and it is inevitable that they should do so. It is to be hoped, by the way, that the alterations to the musical composition of “God Save the King” will not mislead the tore deaf, who have schooled themselves to recognise our National Anthem and to stand up at the right moment.