University of Virginia Library


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,

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And there are no more maidens to deflower—
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.”