University of Virginia Library

SONG OF DAWNRISE.

England, awake!
The pillars tremble,
And those that (suckled at thy breast) partake
Of all the grandeur and with thee have grown,
No more dissemble
The doubts which littleness had never known.
Gird on the dreadful sword,
Estate thy ships
With thunder for the battles of the Lord
Who goes before and speaketh through thy lips;
And choose the smiters
Who turn not from the face of any foe
Or fiery throe,
But march straight on to their predestined end,
World-righters,
And to their purpose bend
Along a path appointed
The arms of iron like vessels of the clay
Refashioned in their proud imperial way,
As God's anointed.
The time for slumber
Hath passed and lo, it strikes, the fated hour,
Decreed for action under this gray sky
From all eternity.
Put off thy silken cumber
And use of gentle arts and elegance,
Put on the dower
Which is thy glory and inheritance
Of awful Power;
And in the splendour of that dress
Which is the cause of righteousness,
Go forward;
Though to the dimness, now yet closer drawn,
The shy dear shadow of the coming dawn.
And on the bitted and the bridled wave,
That loyal slave
Which wafts thee shoreward
The tribute of each farthest clime and coast,
Launch thy stout fleets, and let the banner fly
Which is the enfranchised nations' boast
Of law and liberty.
England, awake!
For enemies are greedy and arise
In braggart weakness,
And think thy sons are fearful and forsake
The duty which their daring fathers led;
And fools despise
The day of meekness,
Won only by the blood so richly shed.
Horizons darken,
And on the anvil of the patient years
The sickle sharpens, from the toils and tears
Of suffering souls and damned and dying,
Which thou alone canst wield
In the red harvest-field.
The kingdoms hearken
For that true charter, which shall bid them be
Themselves and free;
And all the earth is crying
For justice unto God, who rules by thee.