English Roses by F. Harald Williams [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] |
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| I. |
| II. |
THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISHMAN. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
 | English Roses |  |
THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISHMAN.
Sometimes, in grim and ghastly merriment,
Nature appeared to fashion frames
Of useless build and ugly names,
That were more suited for a cerement;
As if, by way of blind experiment,
Indulgences in gruesome games.
She seemed one sporting with her tools
In ceaseless play and curious trying,
At leisured labour dimly plying
Her work and forming worlds and fools;
And learning still herself, in schools
Of awful mirth and pain and dying.
Nature appeared to fashion frames
Of useless build and ugly names,
That were more suited for a cerement;
As if, by way of blind experiment,
Indulgences in gruesome games.
She seemed one sporting with her tools
In ceaseless play and curious trying,
At leisured labour dimly plying
Her work and forming worlds and fools;
And learning still herself, in schools
Of awful mirth and pain and dying.
She seemed to aim at something vaster
While scarcely knowing what she sought,
Though through the œons long she wrought
With threads of dawning and disaster;
Because she could not make the Master,
Consummate in his act and thought.
She mixed the iron and moulded clay
With every sort of mighty leaven,
The flames of hell, the bliss of heaven;
She mingled with the sword to slay
The passion both of night and day,
And mystery of the virtues seven.
While scarcely knowing what she sought,
Though through the œons long she wrought
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Because she could not make the Master,
Consummate in his act and thought.
She mixed the iron and moulded clay
With every sort of mighty leaven,
The flames of hell, the bliss of heaven;
She mingled with the sword to slay
The passion both of night and day,
And mystery of the virtues seven.
So then, with wind that shakes the Norlands,
She fused the glory of the sea
And sunny freshness of the lea;
She took the stubborn strength of forelands,
And blent it with the shade of shorelands
Which listen to the wild waves' plea.
The blood of grapes, the cruel frost
And all the sweet and all the bitter,
The coarsest grain, the fineness fitter
She dashed with snow of peaks uncrost
And dreadful spaces tempest-tost—
But tuned them with the songbird's twitter.
She fused the glory of the sea
And sunny freshness of the lea;
She took the stubborn strength of forelands,
And blent it with the shade of shorelands
Which listen to the wild waves' plea.
The blood of grapes, the cruel frost
And all the sweet and all the bitter,
The coarsest grain, the fineness fitter
She dashed with snow of peaks uncrost
And dreadful spaces tempest-tost—
But tuned them with the songbird's twitter.
The salt of gray unvoyaged ocean
Where never yet a sail was spread,
Without a bottom for the lead,
She joined to gentlest maid's devotion
And wrath of maddest mad commotion
Which breaks the shackles of the dead.
She chose the rooting of the tree
By storm and heat and winter harried,
The stillness where no strife has tarried
In solitude that none may see;
And cheered them with whate'er is free,
By hate unwarped, by love upcarried.
Where never yet a sail was spread,
Without a bottom for the lead,
She joined to gentlest maid's devotion
And wrath of maddest mad commotion
Which breaks the shackles of the dead.
She chose the rooting of the tree
By storm and heat and winter harried,
The stillness where no strife has tarried
In solitude that none may see;
And cheered them with whate'er is free,
By hate unwarped, by love upcarried.
She poured the courage of the martyr
Into her work, the wealth of air,
The climbing of the temple stair,
And duty far too proud to barter
One right for all enchantments fair—
And gave to it her broadest charter.
The wandering splendour of the sky,
The enterprise that can't be headed
To fierceness of the fire she wedded,
And forged red-hot to liberty;
But deep down in eternity,
The bases of its life were bedded.
Into her work, the wealth of air,
The climbing of the temple stair,
And duty far too proud to barter
One right for all enchantments fair—
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The wandering splendour of the sky,
The enterprise that can't be headed
To fierceness of the fire she wedded,
And forged red-hot to liberty;
But deep down in eternity,
The bases of its life were bedded.
The fulness of a perfect stature,
With beauty from the forest lone
And pureness as a bridal zone,
She linked to love of legislature;
And adding power in judicature,
She hardened this to grit of stone.
But then she blessed her finished plan
And breathed into it true divinity,
Large frankness, grace of shy virginity—
Whatever mortal may or can;
And thus she made the Englishman,
Of homely earth and high infinity.
With beauty from the forest lone
And pureness as a bridal zone,
She linked to love of legislature;
And adding power in judicature,
She hardened this to grit of stone.
But then she blessed her finished plan
And breathed into it true divinity,
Large frankness, grace of shy virginity—
Whatever mortal may or can;
And thus she made the Englishman,
Of homely earth and high infinity.
| English Roses | |