No Fear Shall We Know

Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Third Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903), is better known to history as Lord Salisbury. He was Foreign Secretary and later Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the heyday of the British Empire. His final term in office ended in 1902, just after the death of Queen Victoria and just before his own.

Lord Salisbury presided over affairs of state during the ascendancy of the British Navy and the partition of Africa among the colonial powers. Towards the end of his time, after the departure of Bismarck, he saw the emergence of the newest aggressive European power, the German Empire, under the bull-in-a-china-shop leadership of young Wilhelm II.

When he left the scene in early Edwardian times, all the pieces had been pushed into place for the final cataclysm that was to come in just a little over a decade. But in 1902 it was still possible to look upon the glory of the British Empire and believe that it would somehow go on this way forever.

This is the background for the first song on Al Stewart’s latest album, Sparks of Ancient Light. The old man still has what it takes, and “Lord Salisbury” is some of his finest work:
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Lord Salisbury
by Al Stewart

Lord Salisbury said to me
“Though we spend our lives in isolation
Girdled round by the Emerald Sea
No fear shall we know”.
Look away, look away, look away
To the lamp-lit square
At the ebb of May
Look away, look away, look away
For our survival

Lord Salisbury takes his time
The government sits in contemplation
All is ordered and in its prime
No fear shall we know
Look away, look away, look away
To the fog-bound ship in the icy bay
Look away, look away, look away
For our survival

On the mantelpiece is a silver clock
And it counts the hours and they won’t turn back
The evening sets and the room forgets
The day that went before
And through my window
Iron wheels on a cobbled mews
You will know changes soon

Lord Salisbury reads the news
And puts the paper on the table
Many paths will be ours to choose
No fear shall we know
Look away, look away, look away
To the fleets of steel and the waves of grey
Look away, look away, look away
For our survival

The Queen is old but she lingers still
Like the fading ring of a distant bell
And Oscar Wilde in his prison cell
Laments a brighter day
And in some window a red flag flies
In a meeting room
You will know changes soon

Lord Salisbury said to me
“Though we spend our lives in isolation
Girdled round by the Emerald Sea
No fear shall we know”.
Look away, look away, look away
To the lonesome cry of the modern day
Look away, look away, look away
For our survival

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It’s hard to realize that in just a little over a century the British Empire went from being the greatest political power in the history of the world to a sad relic, a cultural sink in the final stages of decline and degradation. Under the waves of unassimilated immigrants from what used to be distant outposts of that Empire, the remnants of Britain are about to be broken up and reassembled into components of the European entity, which will soon in its turn be absorbed into the Islamic Ummah.

I know an old man in a nearby town who will turn a hundred next year. He was born just a few years after Lord Salisbury died. Since he’s still in his right mind, he can recall the Great War, albeit from an American perspective.

So we’re not that far away from Lord Salisbury’s world, yet it is alien to us as the Carthaginian Empire. If events continue on their present course, in just a few decades the glorious noontime of the British Empire will have disappeared entirely, leaving no visible monuments except for whatever plinths and statues its Muslim inheritors allow to remain.

After a century or so the Great War will complete its work, and then nothing will be left but the poppies and the crosses, row on row. And how much longer will the crosses be allowed to stand?

You will know changes soon.