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20
SAN JACINTO
England in 1861
Land of the pilgrim fathers, far refuge of the free,
With what forgiving tenderness our hearts have beat for thee!
The ancient feuds were buried, and the battle-fields o'ergrown,
And thy heroes to our history were as precious as our own.
With what forgiving tenderness our hearts have beat for thee!
The ancient feuds were buried, and the battle-fields o'ergrown,
And thy heroes to our history were as precious as our own.
Thy sons and ours have walk'd abreast as kinsfolk and as friends,
As men who seek the same high goal, and choose the same pure ends:
Thy sons and ours, we thought, should teach the world to hold in awe
The cloudless face of liberty, the level gaze of law.
As men who seek the same high goal, and choose the same pure ends:
Thy sons and ours, we thought, should teach the world to hold in awe
The cloudless face of liberty, the level gaze of law.
And is the story ended, and is the hope obscured,
Ere yet a hundred years the work of freedom has endured?
Has all that should have gone to make, been fashion'd but to mar—
Our mother-speech to spend in wrath, our kindred blood in war?
Ere yet a hundred years the work of freedom has endured?
Has all that should have gone to make, been fashion'd but to mar—
Our mother-speech to spend in wrath, our kindred blood in war?
Where are thy poets, hapless land, thy statesmen and thy seers,
With whom we took sweet converse in other fairer years?
Their ways were ways of kindliness, their words were words of peace—
Have they no voice to guide thee now, and bid thy tempters cease?
With whom we took sweet converse in other fairer years?
Their ways were ways of kindliness, their words were words of peace—
Have they no voice to guide thee now, and bid thy tempters cease?
Alas! through all that seething mob the sense of right decays,
The modest, manly reverence that dares and yet obeys:
Their wisest may not govern, and their ablest may not rule,
But the crown is to the boaster and the garland to the fool.
The modest, manly reverence that dares and yet obeys:
Their wisest may not govern, and their ablest may not rule,
But the crown is to the boaster and the garland to the fool.
21
We who have walk'd with wisdom and have grown from less to more
In calm well-order'd progress, looking backward and before,
We held our hands in silence, and suffer'd all too long,
As men may do that have no fear, because their faith is strong:
In calm well-order'd progress, looking backward and before,
We held our hands in silence, and suffer'd all too long,
As men may do that have no fear, because their faith is strong:
But he who soils our country's flag and mocks our country's fame
Though he were twice a brother, should pay us for the shame:
The memory of our old renown cries loud o'er land and sea—
Heroic as our past has been, our present still shall be.
Though he were twice a brother, should pay us for the shame:
The memory of our old renown cries loud o'er land and sea—
Heroic as our past has been, our present still shall be.
Therefore, in sorrow, but in strength, among her quiet lands,
Slow risen from her stately ease, Old England sternly stands:
No heart but answers to her call, no arm but waves a sign,
From the serried ranks of London to the seamen of the Tyne.
Slow risen from her stately ease, Old England sternly stands:
No heart but answers to her call, no arm but waves a sign,
From the serried ranks of London to the seamen of the Tyne.
As one who smites a recreant son, or shuns a faithless wife,
Who holds by duty more than love, by honour more than life,
So leans she on her shining sword in mood resolved and grave,
And waits to clasp the peaceful hand, or grip the angry glaive.
Who holds by duty more than love, by honour more than life,
So leans she on her shining sword in mood resolved and grave,
And waits to clasp the peaceful hand, or grip the angry glaive.
God grant her stroke be short and sharp, if once that sword is shown—
A stroke to spare the guiltless and to cleave the scorner down!
And God defend that war should end the love that still must flow
From the mother to the children, from our England to her foe!
A stroke to spare the guiltless and to cleave the scorner down!
And God defend that war should end the love that still must flow
From the mother to the children, from our England to her foe!
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