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Poems

By Richard Chenevix Trench: New ed

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45

SONNET.

ON THE REVIEW OF THE VOLUNTEERS IN HYDE-PARK BY THE QUEEN, 1860.

No pause, no stay—a glorious hour or more,
And that loud-clashing music is not dumb,
For still the close battalions come and come,
As though all England the long pent-up store
Of her deliberate valour would outpour,
Not flaunting in war's liveries rich and gay,
But all in sober green and working gray,
O Lady of the land, thy feet before.
High beats thine heart, the Lady of a land
That breeds such men; and theirs beat proud and high,
Who only with step statelier and more grand
Would move beneath thy recompensing eye,
Girt, if that day should call them, to reply
On some dread field to duty's last demand.