Love-Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

ODE TO ENGLAND.

STROPHE I.

At length the lands arise
With heaven-seeking eyes;
No more they search the past,
And backward glances cast
Towards fields of Galilee
And that blue inland sea:
But every land adores
The God of its own shores,
The Deity of its hills,
The Spirit of its rills,
Redeemer of its plains,
Who o'er its cities reigns
Cleansing each soul from stains.

STROPHE II.

Lift up your eyes towards the morning brightness,
Dwell no more 'mid the past like sons of slaves:
Lo! even here shines the exceeding whiteness
Of Venus 'mid the surging crowns of waves,
And Jesus rises from ten thousand graves.

The heroes of high history of each nation
Speak in the burning records of the race;
Through wrongs, through woes, through speechless tribulation,
They sought the living God's great changeless face
And now they shine star-saviours in each place.

Bright are their eyes and deathless is their glory;
Lift up your eyes to their eyes all ye lands!
Yea, every nation, listen to the story
Of those who moulded it with iron hands,
And loosed its dim primeval swaddling-bands.

STROPHE III.

O England, dwell no longer
'Mid shows of things, and dreams:
Rise, for thou art the stronger!
Thy sunrise o'er thee beams
And round about thee streams.

Stronger thou art and fairer
Than lands thou hast obeyed:
Thine azure heavens are rarer;
Why art thou thus afraid?
Why lingerest in the shade?

Hast thou no spirits diviner
Than Jesus, Moses, Paul?
Art thou content with minor
Slow-sandalled feet that crawl,
Not fly—that stumble, fall?

Hast thou no hearts that carry
A yearning force supreme?
Must thou for ever tarry,
Possessed by some pale dream,
While past thee nations stream?

Rise! greater than the immortal
Spirits of Greece and Rome
Thou hast within thy portal:
Within the ring of foam
That girds thine island-home.

STROPHE IV.

England! bring thou blossoms from all thy hills;
Wreathe thou tender lilies from sides of rills
Golden, flowing through vales that plenty fills.

Golden crowns of the corn, and crowns of red
Autumn leaves for the new God's kingly head
Bring thou; he needs a wreath, for his wreaths are dead.

Dead are the Jewish wreaths, and the flowers of Rome:
Now God plunges his feet deep in the English foam,
Seeking this land for rest, craving a Western home.

Wilt thou hound him away, shriek him away from thee?
Hurl him wandering forth over the barren sea?
Build him a temple rather, marble in purity.

Let God rest and dream, hidden in thy deep meads,
Hidden and wreathed in flowers, soothing the brow that bleeds
Yet from the spears and thorns, finding delight he needs.

Here is a land for a God; fair in body and soul.
England, give to thy God body and heart,—thy whole
Measureless splendid might, as of tides that round thee roll.

STROPHE V.

Lo! in tender accents, hark! the high God speaks;
England, let his message flush thy languid cheeks!
Give to him the great gift that his longing seeks.

Give to him thy children, fair and strong and free,
Pure and brave and happy, splendid flowers of thee,
Give to him thy manhood, thy maturity.

“Weary am I,” God saith, “of the pallid past;
Brace me, wind of England, after burning blast
O' the arid Eastern deserts, where my soul was cast.

“Now I turn me Northward: shall I find a race
Fit to stand before me, unabashed of face?
Shall I find in England home and dwelling-place?”

ANTISTROPHE I.

Doth England hear and turn
With longing eyes that yearn
And sparkle at the voice
Of Deity, and rejoice?
Or doth she, cowed and pale,
Hidden beneath the veil
Of her own feebleness,
Tremble at the stress
And force of fiery sound
That girdled her around
When the high God spoke,
And thunderlike he broke
The silence, and she woke.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Wilt thou with ferns and flowers from deep dim valleys
Weave a divine sweet frontlet for thy king,
O England; now thy soul his trumpet rallies,
What wilt thou in thine arms, O England, bring?
Wherewith wilt thou the eternal forehead ring?

The bay-leaves wilt thou bind of all thy singers
Around the eternal forehead broad and white,
Touching with womanly and reverent fingers
The brow, the eyes of marvellous sweet light:
Then wilt thou bring rose-crowns of lovers bright?

Oh, most of all, be thine own self, and ring him
With thine own strengthened and victorious soul:
This chiefest of all gifts, O England, bring him!
Mingle in love's clear sacrificial bowl
The wine of thine own heart made flawless, whole.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Let love at length its mission
In thine own home fulfil:
Let love's sweet utmost vision
Of perfect soul and will
All devious passions still.

Let love at length be chainless;
So shall love be supreme,
Then for the first time stainless,
A golden sunrise-gleam
Upon a golden stream.

Pour through thine own dear meadows,
England, one burst of song,
Scattering pain's shadows
And all the black-plumed throng
Of sorrows, strange and strong.

Meet, utterly white, fearless,
The God who for thee pines:
Glad, sighless, pangless, tearless,
Casting aside the signs
Of suffering he divines.

Thine immemorial sorrow
He knoweth, and shall slay:
Lo! crimson dawns the morrow
Of many a mournful day
Through centuries grim and grey.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Not the dreams of the past, of the days of old,
God needs: not strange dreams of the walls of gold
In heaven and jewels and pearls and treasure untold.

Not these things; but the breath of the English air
And blossoms of spring from dells where ferns are fair
And jewels of star-white petals than pearls more rare.

And jewels of glances bright and tender and grey
Better to God now, dearer, than star-like ray
Of glances piercing the cloudless Eastern day.

And weapons of strong men's arms from the Northern plains
Whereover the future's sun, now rising, reigns;
Rich armour of fearless countless hearts for his fanes.

These and the sound of our seas by day by night,
The limitless organ-peal of breakers white
Thrilling the new-found heart of God with might.

And the utter strength of the soul: this God requires;
And all the worship and music of English lyres
And worship of limitless sea-like hearts he desires.

ANTISTROPHE V.

Lo! with brave sweet accents England turns to thee
Great God of the past world, king now of the sea
Girding her white cliffs, lord of futurity.

“Take my thousand meadows; take each hill and plain;”
So saith England: “over free glad spirits reign;
Rule till as my seas are, souls are clear of stain.

“Pour thy kingly presence through the throbbing land:
Sons of God by thousands shall before thee stand
Holding daughters of thee by the white, white hand.

“Sons of God and daughters, saviours, shalt thou find
In the race thou choosest; leaders of mankind,
Voiced as are the surges, winged as is the wind.”

EPODE.

Beyond the faintest region of stars or skies
Lo! England pierces the future with sunbright eyes.

Great spirits beyond the spirits who crowned the past
Shall lift the future towards summits unreached and vast.

Already the sound of their feet at the doors is heard
And the wide land shakes and quakes at their loud first word.

Christ-men, Christ-women, whose feet at the bright doors stand
Shall lift and redeem and heal and deliver the land.

The God in their eyes shall pierce through the lessening gloom
And their splendour of heart shall be treasure and flame and perfume.

And the places waste shall blossom, the wild ways sing
At the message of peace and redemption and joy they bring.

These England bearing thou shalt stand forth as a queen
And rule the future, triumphant and great of mien.

And God in thy waves and upon thy hills shall sound
And in women's souls and in men's with God's kiss crowned.