 | Sonnets by the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] |  |
39
THE ORDER OF THE STAR OF INDIA.
‘The star of India!’ 'tis a goodly name—Due to a fuller honour, purer love,
Than we, defaulters to our trust, can claim:
Yet sure its choice was prompted from above;
Part-offspring of our civil hopes and fears,
Perchance its style is loftier than its birth;
But seen by wistful eyes thro' holy tears,
It lengthens out its beams and lights the earth;
We hail it as the herald of the day,
Earth's noblest badge, and knighthood's brightest prize;
The spirit of Havelock, the pure and wise,
Leans forward to salute it on its way—
And sainted Heber, with a glad surprise
Sees from Almorah's hill its rising ray.
40
Unblest with day for ages; and despair
Had seized me, but for cooling airs that fann'd
My forehead, and a voice that said ‘Prepare!’
Anon I felt a dawning was at hand;
A planet rose, whose light no cloud could mar,
And made thro' all the landscape near and far,
A wild half-morning for that dreary land;
I saw her seas come washing to the shore
In sheets of gleaming ripples, wide and fair;
I saw her goodly rivers brimming o'er,
And from their fruitful shallows looked the star;
And all seem'd kissed with star-light! till the beam
Of sunrise broke and yet fulfill'd my dream.
| Sonnets by the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] | |