Reverberations :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lord John Russell, to whose courageous and honourable services England is indebted for extended liberties, when in 1849 remedial measures were demanded for Ireland, replied with a cry of regret for helplessness. Sir Robert Peel's statement of a strong and decisive policy, which was afterwards wholly or in part adopted, awakened feelings of admiration, to which I gave expression in this sonnet printed in the Spectator.

I.

Now is our England like a ship at sea,
That reels and plunges in careering waves,
While, clothed with darkness, the strong tempest raves,
And sharp and threatening rocks are on the lea.
What profit can a phantom-pilot be,
A soul that hath no compass, sees no star?
O thou with the true word oracular!
Stand forth and let us know a man in thee.
Yes! come with world-wide guidance, take the helm;
There lies the port that we would gladly hold,—
Fair-havened, ere the trampling waves o'erwhelm!
O speaker of one thought more rare than gold!
O traveller in Reality's stern realm!
Thou seest our star; steer onward, wise and bold.

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II.

Yet true it is that even thou art one
That hitherto hast steered no forthright course,
Shown no prophetic soul, no central force,
Nor stood expectant of the rising sun,
Catching the light ere day had well begun.
And if clear sight be thine, with will to act,
Or wit to build on the strong rock of Fact,
All thou wouldst do were better, earlier done.
Yet now call forth thy manhood, now arise,
And steer our England through the insurgent sea;
Now watch the coming dawn with straining eyes,
And in the Present show us the To be.
So when the daylight overflows the skies,
We shall behold our chief of men in thee.

III.

The hope, the promise now defeated are;
The rainbow leaves the cloud, and in the skies,
Where once we fixed our wistful wondering eyes,
We see not, morn or eve, our leading star;
And he that o'er the surge and swamping bar
Should be our pilot, when the winds are loud,
And the black sea is sucked into the cloud,
Leaves us, and all that promise fades afar.
Yet mourn not, for he wears a statesman's crown,

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Whose diamond radiance strikes to years unborn;
And spite of pale-green Envy and dark frown
Of Faction or the bigot's ignorant scorn,
In pastoral village, or in red-bricked town,
His name shall wake the echoes night and morn.