 | The year of shame by William Watson |  |
43
XII
LEISURED JUSTICE
“She bides her hour.” And must I then believe
That when the day of peril is o'erpast,
She who was great because so oft she cast
All thought of peril to the waves that heave
Against her feet, shall greatly undeceive
Her purblind son who dreamed she shrank aghast
From Duty's signal, and shall act at last,
When there is naught remaining to retrieve?
At last! when the last altar is defiled,
44
When the last mother folds with famished arms
To her dead bosom her last butchered child—
Then shall our England, throned beyond alarms,
Rise in her might! Till then, “she bides her hour.”
| The year of shame by William Watson | |