 | Poems |  |
ENGLAND.
O England, awe of earth, how great art thou!Mother of nations, filler of the lands
With freemen, free-born, who is like to thee,
Or hath been? Egypt and the vanish'd rules
428
That blasted races, and death dealt, were gone,
Their records, ruins. Greece arose and lit
The dark with glory, but a falling star,
How bright, how fleeting! save that yet her thoughts,
Less mortal than her gods, illume us still.
Rome came and saw and conquered, erushed and pass'd,
Smitten by freemen, she and all her slaves.
Gone are the thrones that the eternal sea
Heap'd riches on and empire—billows huge,
That roll'd, and roar'd, and burst upon her shores,
Tyre and the pomp of Sidon—Afric's boast,
Swart Carthage—Venice, and the ocean rules
Of Genoa and of Holland—all are gone.
Spain is the mock of nations once who shook
Even at the utterance of her iron name.
These and their glories are but mutter'd dreams
That by the past's dead lips are feebly told;
But we endure, we, sceptred heirs of power,
Victory and empire, fated to endure,
Gathering fresh might and glory through all time.
Our glory is our safeguard. Wall'd we stand
With mighty memories—buckler'd with bright fames;
Our present, still ’tis pillar'd on a past
That lifts it, glistening in time's marvelling gaze,
An awe and wonder to the trembling world.
Yes; were we aged—did our great life die out—
Were England palsied, as the nations are
That once knew greatness, phantoms of the past
Would rule earth for us, and the subject seas,
So long our tributaries, at the thought
Of what we have been, still would crouch and cringe,
And fawn upon our footstool; but, thank God!
Greatly we stand on greatness—rock-like, plant
Feet adamantine through the flow of time,
No muscle loosening; ever widening still
Stretch the broad bases that uprear our strength,
And thrust us skywards; the hot vines of Spain
Ripen beneath our shadow; the green world
The barks of Palos bared to Europe's gaze,
429
That chafe the tropic billows feel our tread;
Lo, other Englands gather in the south,
And 'neath the glare of India we tread out
The bloody wrath that writhes beneath our heel,
And shield the maddening nations from themselves.
Where is the earthly air that has not borne
The record of our glory? What far race
But, naming greatness, to its children tells
Foremost our triumphs, all the mighty names
That are our greatness? For what land on earth,
Sceptred or crownless, can bid glory count
Hero for hero with us—fame for fame?
Earth boasts one Homer; we, one yet more high,
Shakespeare. If Florence hush her soul in awe,
Naming her Dante, hell, and heaven's sweet air
Were breathed by Milton. Who to wisdom taught
How to be wisest? Bacon. Newton lived,
And God's dread secrets straight man wondering read,
And all the worlds revolved in order'd law.
Watt made the might of Nature's primal powers
Our toiling bondslaves. Drake and wandering Cook,
Parry and Park and all their fellows trod
Billow and land, and made them paths to man.
Look, knowledge lightens thought from land to land;
That did our Wheatstone. Fame, to name our great,
Were weary ere the flaming roll were told,
And still she writes, what glories! on the scroll,
Courage and wisdom kin to greatness gone,
Those that the blasting path to Lucknow trod,
And smote curst Delhi and its brood of hell,
Havelock and Lawrence—names fit mates to those
Who broke the dusky ranks at Plassy first,
And far Assaye, and crush'd Ameer and Sikh
At Meeanee and red Ferozeshah,
And crowned our brows with empire. Crecy's fame,
And mailed Poictiers' and Agincourt's had heirs
In Blenheim and Corunna, and the fields
Of Wellington—Vittoria and its peers,
And the wild, earth-felt shock of Waterloo.
430
Were thrones to rule the lands from, from you sprung,
In us lives on your scorn of all that pales
Weakness—in us your hunger of renown.
Sea-roamers—grapplers with the might of storms—
Stern tramplers of the billows, fitting sons
To you were Drake and Hawkins, and the hearts
That with fierce joy, for God and right, went forth
And wrapped the Armada—the Invincible—
In their red wrath, and whelm'd it in the deep.
Brother to you was he whom our proud lips
Name proudly—Blake, who, many a bloody day,
Grappled with Dutch Van Tromp, and thundered down
The broadsides of De Ruyter. Kin to you,
O ye old Norse hearts, who dared look on death
And greet him loud if victory with him came,
Were later glories. From your fierce veins sprang
The fiery blood of Rooke, who gave La Hogue
To glory—Monk and Shovel—Benbow—Hawke—
Duncan of Camperdown—Howe—Rodney—he
Who at St. Vincent thunder-calmed the winds—
And of him, mightiest, whose fierce voice of war
Nile and the Dane heard, crouching—he who gave
To us the ocean's rule at Trafalgar.
So triumph grows to triumph. From the fire
Of by-gone fames we light the glories up
That sun the present. Oh, should danger threat,
New vauntings front us, and the shock of war,
In the red smoke of battle shall we feel
The awful presence of our living dead,
Steeling our hearts to conquer. Hellas heard,
At Marathon, and Salamis, heard clear
The roar of Ares, and the hero shout
Of Ajax pouring flight amid her foe.
The stern dead Douglas won at Otterbourne;
So Wellington our charging ranks shall hurl
Through future triumphs; through all coming time
Shall foes' masts crash and struck flags flutter down,
We conquering in the thought we can but win
Whose blood is Nelson's. Nor is fame alone
431
In surer strength that fates us not to fall;
For we have breathed the breath that knows not death,
Hers in whose might we dread not the decay
That palsies nations. At the mighty breast
Of Freedom were we nurtured. At her knee
Have we drunk in the mighty lore that gives
To nations immortality and youth
Eternal. To our hands she gave the spell
That masters monarchs. From her lips were caught
The charging cheer of Edgehill, and the shout
That at red Naseby scattered far her foes.
Strong in her strength, we strengthen—conquering
And still to conquer, while we do her will.
Us does she gift with wisdom. We are wise
In Courts and counsels—all that builds up States,
And from the clash of thought do we shock out
Fit light to walk by—truths, by which we walk
More and more wisely; but, O island home
Of freemen, thee a future beckons on,
Lit with a glory thou hast never known,
And great with greatness that for thee shall be.
Lo, thou hast walked in sunlight that is night
Seen by the radiance of that perfect day.
Then shall thy homes know wisdom. Not a hearth
But thou shalt ring with knowledge, as a right
Dealt to thy children—to thy sons reared up
Fitly, self-ruled, to share, ungrudged, thy rule,
And walk the ways of greatness, wide to all.
Theirs shall be all the victories of peace,
The piercing eyes to whose all-fearless gaze
Nature gives up her secrets—Art reveals
Unrobed her beauties; theirs the ears that hear
That voice divine that unto slavish ears
Speaks not—that breathing of the airs of heaven
That the high Muse's lips give forth through man.
Then, mighty mother, then thy eagle brood
All shalt thou train to front the cloudless sun
Of blasting glory with strong eyes that drink
Its glare unshrinking, scaling with strong wing
432
To seats of Gods and regions of the stars,
Where dwell the immortals wise in rule to man
And guidance godlike, there in light to dwell,
An awe and gladness to the eyes of earth.
O England, might that future now be thine!
Then shall the fulness of thy greatness be—
In war, in peace, the fulness of thy fame.
Then shall a race, how godlike! walk thy ways,
Eating of fruit, forbidden now—the fruit
Of knowledge, making men like unto Gods,
Knowing of good and evil—good, to embrace—
Ill, shun—that earth may liker grow to heaven,
That heaven's full blessedness on earth may be,
That the all-righteous reign of love may come,
Of right and peace, that wrong may be no more.
So great thou art; so greater shalt thou grow,
Doing the will of Him who bade thee be
Foremost amongst the nations. Know thou right
And do it. Be thy future, as thy past,
Built to his glory. On His awful breath
Are rule and empire. At His word they rise,
They pass. So walk thou, that He be thy staff
In this thy journey onward—that thou be
The earthly shadow of his power and love,
His strength and mercy—that thou lead the earth
Unto His altar-steps in whom thou art,
Thy strength and succour—that the nations see
How great are they who surely trust in Him,
And know thee for the chosen of thy God.
1858.
| Poems | |