University of Virginia Library

You lovers of our England, do but look
On this dear Country over whose fair face
God droopt a bridal-veil of tender mist,
That she might keep her beauty virginal,
And he might see her thro' a softer glory:
So very meek and reverent doth she stand
Within this shadow soft of Love Divine,
A sacred sweetness in her good, gray eyes;
A tenderer radiance kindling in her clouds;
A dewier lustre in her grass and flowers;
More loveable, and not as brighter lands
Whose bolder beauty stares up in Heaven's face.

Look on her now, this Darling of the Sea,
Smiling upon her image in its calm,
As Beauty in her mirror looks and smiles.
And as a happy Lover clasps his Bride,
The fond Sea folds her round, and his brimmed life
Runs rippling to her inmost heart of hearts,
Until it swims a-flood with happiness;
While all the waters of her love leap back
To him exultant from a thousand hills.
From his salt virtue comes her northern sweetness.
With his bluff breezes how he doth embrace her!
How his rough kisses set her rose a-bloom!
Once in his rousëd wrath he lifted up
A mighty Armada in his arms, and dasht
It into sea-drift at his Mistress' feet.
And still he threatens with the voice of storms
The plots of all Invaders: still he keeps
Eternal watch around.

How proud in peace,
The wild white horses rear and foam along
And bring to her the harvests of a world!
How grand in war they bear her battle line
Like Strength half-smiling, perfect Power crowned
With careless grace, which seemeth to all eyes
The plume of Triumph nodding as it goes:
For visible victory sits on England's brow,
And shines upon her sails.

See where she sits
Holding at heart her noble dead, and nursing
Her living Children on the old brave virtue!
Wearing the rainy radiance of the morning,
A silver sweetness swimming thro' her tears;
Feeling the glory rippling down from heaven
With smiles from all her wild flowers, her green leaves,
And nooks where old times live their shepherd ways.

We cannot count her heroes who lay down
In quiet graveyards when their work was done;
But mound on mound they rise all over the land
To bar a Tyrant's path, and make his feet
To stumble like the blind man among tombs.
Her brave dead make our earth heroic dust:
Their spirit glitters in our England's face
And makes her shine, a Star in blackest night,
Calm at her heart, and glory round her head.
We think of all who fought, and who are now
Immortals in the heaven of her love;
The Martyrs who have made of burning wrongs
Their fiery chariot, and gone up to God;
The saintly Sorrows that now walk in white;
Till faces bloom like Battle Banners flusht
All over with most glorious memories.
We are a chosen People; Freedom wears
Our English Rose for her peculiar crest,
Whoso dares touch it, bleeds upon the thorn.
It may be that the time will come again
For one more desperate struggle to the death.
The Devil's eye upon our England looks
With snaky sparkle still. It may be they
Will rouse the tamed Berserkir rage, and make
The vein of wrath throb livid on her brow,
And wake the old Norse War-dog in her blood,
Until the long-breathed swimmer strips and springs
Afloat; strikes out and shows her battle-teeth;
The clash of conflict lightning thro' her veins!

Thrice hath our England swept the seas, an cleared
Her ocean path, the highways of the world,
And shall again if Robbers lie in wait.
Steadfast she stood when towering nations poured
In one wild wave their culminating power!
Thro' all that harvest-day of bloody death,
They charged in vain, and dasht upon the edge
Of her good sword, and fell, at Waterloo!
She kept the shamble slopes of Inkermann!
Thro' blood and fire and gloom of Indian War
Swam its Red Sea, and rode out the mad storm!
So shall we hold our own dear land with all
The old unvanquisht soul, and live to see
Their changing Empires shift like sand around
The Island Rock, the footstool of the Lord,
Where Freedom also lays her head, and rest
In calm or strife the best hopes of a world.

Great starry thoughts grow luminous in the dark!
The Bird of Hope goes singing overhead!
We cannot fear for England; we can die
To do her bidding, but we cannot fear;
We who have heard her thunder-roll of deeds
Reverberating thro' the centuries;
By battle fire-light had the stories told;
We who have seen how proudly she prepares
For sacrifice, how radiantly her face
Flasht when the Bugle blew its bloody sounds,
And bloody weather fluttered the old Flag:
We who have seen her with the red heaps round!
We who have known the mightiest powers dasht back
Broken from her impregnable sea-walls;
We who have learned how in the darkest hour
The greatest light breaks out, and in the time
Of trial she reveals her noblest strength;
We cannot fear for England; cannot fear,
We who have felt her big heart beat in ours.

There's sap in the old Oak! She lives to sow
The future forests with her acorns still.

Hail to thee, Mother of Nations! mighty yet
To strive and suffer, and give overthrow!
For all the powers of nature fight for thee.
Spirits that sleep in glory shall awake,
Come down and drive thy Car of victory
Over thine enemies' necks.

Long will they wait
Who privily lurk to stab thee when the night
Shall cover all in darkness.

Dear old Land,
Thy shining glories are no Sunset gleams,
But clouds that kindle round some great new Dawn.