For England :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thanks for your heartening word, that came from one
Acquainted with the story of many peoples,
Acquainted with the life of many peoples;
An honoured labourer for the amity
And weal of peoples, loftier things than sway.

Thanks for your heartening word, that came to one
Fated to hoist a somewhat lonely sail,
Against the wind and tide; that came to one
Fated to be at variance with the time,
Touching the parts it hisses or applauds;
Who liefer would sit mute, and be withdrawn
Far into some consolatory Past,
Among old voices, the unperishing,
Save that such words of cheer the courier Hours
Bring when most needed, words restorative,
Coming across the silence or dispraise,
Coming across the welter and the gloom.

I lose not hope or faith in this great land,
This many-victoried, many-heroed land,
Though hope oft sinks, and faith is hard to hold.
She that with ruthless John and truthless Charles,
And James the despicable, by voice or sword
Strove, and not vainly, for her liberties;
She that from him, the humbler of the world,
Whose thunderous heel was on submitted thrones,
Kept whole and virginal her liberties;
She that so joyed at sound of other lands
Heaved high with passion for their liberties;

Shall yet win back—'tis thus at least I dream,
Being her lover, and dreaming from the heart—
Shall yet win back her lost and wandering soul,
Shall yet recall herself from banishment;
Shall yet remember—she forgets to-day—
How the munificent hands of Life are full
Of gifts more covetable an hundredfold
Than man's dominion o'er reluctant man;
And come upon old wealth disused and idle,
Her scorned estate and slighted patrimony,
Auriferous veins in all the field of being,

With those shy treasures no self-seeking wins,
Rather self-search, and grace of fortunate hours.

The Cæsars and the Alexanders pass,
Whilst he that drank the hemlock, he that drank
The Cup more dread, on Calvary hill, remain,
Servants and mighty conquerors of the world.
The great achievement of the human mind
Is the idea of Justice. More than arts
And sciences, than faiths and rituals, this
Lifts all our life above the life of beasts.

Chiefly by this are we a nobler kind,
The Earth's elect and separate; lost to this,
Our state is as the state of beasts indeed,
That snatch their meat, one from another's mouth,
And without pain another's pain behold;
Though these are guiltless, knowing not light or law.