 | Lyrical Poems |  |
II
And wherefore feels he thus? Because its shoreNor conqueror's foot nor despot's may defile,
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And Peace sits musing beside each man's door.
Beyond these straits, the wild-beast mob may roar,
Elsewhere the veering demagogue beguile:
We, hand in hand with the Past, look on and smile,
And tread the ways our fathers trod before.
What though some wretch, whose glory you may trace
Past lonely hearths and unrecorded graves,
Round his Sword-sceptre summoning swarms of slaves,
Menace our shores with conflict or disgrace,—
We laugh behind the bulwark of the waves,
And fling the foam defiant in his face.
| Lyrical Poems | |