 | English Roses |  |
A MODERN JUBILATE.
Behold, they flock with multitudinous feet,The countries, even from earth's remotest marge,
Empires and kingdoms and democracies
And potentates and principalities,
That lay aside their jealous doubts and meet
At one broad table with the same high charge;
To honour her, whom all
Consent to crown with reverence as their own,
The sovereign of the seas,
The foremost Lady of the Land,
Who never did an action mean or small
But by her gentle charities is known,
A ready listener to the lowliest pleas
And servant of her servants' least command.
O parliament of peoples
Most visible, most vast,
A hundred towers and stately steeples
Remind you of the more heroic past;
And from the shadow of their glorious graves
Bring back the men of might
Who built this England Queen of winds and waves
Up to her goodly height.
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About you grandly in its splendour spread,
And under captive nations
The solid sure foundations,
That to the living
Establishes a firm and faithful pledge
Of safety, on red revolution's edge
With sheer sharp downward slopes;
And grants forgiving
In fair eternal hopes,
For judgment blindness
And calculated years of armed unkindness.
Rejoice, that England is herself and strong
For ruling yet,
And has a sceptre infinite and long
To reach the ills that God doth nigh forget;
Which is indeed His dreadful Arm and draws,
Though throned as stars in stations
Above the range of common laws,
Princes and populations
Unto that awful Will
Which brooks no rival still.
Rejoice, that England in her freedom reigns,
Serene and sole,
And carries on her head the aureole
Of destiny too large for other brows,
And sways the righteous sword
In battles for the Lord
Which weakness tries to lift but only feigns,
And keeps her plighted vows.
She stands, nor at the hour delays to strike,
Colossus-like
On sea and continent,
Dispensing round her liberties and charters
And crowns and “garters”
To those who win her favour, and the earth
In desert wastes and wilds forgets its dearth,
At her arbitrament.
Her commerce is the life-blood of the lands,
It carries with it plenitudes of wealth
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Unknown, undreamed of at the morn
Of leaves and ragged thorn,
In better broader times to be;
And broken bands
That come with loftier works and ways
Than all our yesterdays,
And beateth out through justice and its light
The music that makes slaves erect and free,
Like noon and night;
So sure and sweet her interchange of act
And word, that as the seasons run
Obedient to the sun
And principle of God's great primal fact.
Rejoice, that England's hold
Falls on the helm
Of progress, and is pioneer of things
And guideth on by character, not gold,
Each willing realm
And vassal strength or State
By paths predestinate
And passionings,
With tournaments of truth
And friendly provocations
To fuller powers and yet more splendid youth,
By loving emulations.
Rejoice, that our big world is vaster
And comelier now for England's sake,
Which is the master,
With the imperial hand to make or break;
And, once in history, crownèd Might
Is Right.
| English Roses | |