SONNET VI
“ONCE AGAIN”
“What are these that howl and hiss across the strait of westward water?
What is he who floods our ears with speech in flood?
See the long tongue lick the dripping hand that smokes and reeks of slaughter!
See the man of words embrace the man of blood!”
Swinburne's poem, “The Commonweal, a Song for Unionists”: published
in the Times on the eve of the Home Rule Election of 1886.
Another long tongue licks another hand,
And once again the battle must be fought
As though the former strange great fight were nought.
Wrath, doom and darkness, shadow all the land.
Left are a few—a staunch unbroken band
Who will not bow the knee. Unbribed, unbought,
They give their lives, their prayers, their toil, their thought,
Freely; and if they fall, their fall is grand.
Men who loved England, when her nobler heart
Tore Gladstone's webs and sophistries apart
And wrenched the clean truth from him without fear,
Stand firm: while all wise spirits and faithful pray
That scorn may sweep such Ministers away,
Lest blood should stain the Coronation Year.
December 11, 1910.
