Lawn tennis may share her favours fair Her Her soul is sweet as the ocean air, For body and mind are hale and healthy. That leaps and laughs in the Highland Go search the world and search the sea, William Schwenk Gilbert. XCII THE BREATH OF AVON TO ENGLISH-SPEAKING PILGRIMS ON SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY I WHATE'ER of woe the Dark may hide in womb Welcome, ye English-speaking pilgrims, ye II From where the steeds of earth's twin oceans toss Come hither, pilgrims, where these rushes sway XCIII ENGLAND STANDS ALONE (ENGLAND STANDS ALONE-WITHOUT AN ALLY.' A Continental Newspaper) 'SHE stands alone: ally nor friend has she,' Saith Europe of our England-her who bore Drake, Blake, and Nelson-Warrior-Queen who wore Light's conquering glaive that strikes the conquered free. Alone! From Canada comes o'er the sea, 'Europe,' saith England, hath forgot my boys!Forgot how tall, in yonder golden zone 'Neath Austral skies, my youngest born have grown (Bearers of bayonets now and swords for toys)— Forgot 'mid boltless thunder-harmless noiseThe sons with whom old England 'stands alone!' Theodore Watts-Dunton. XCIV ENGLAND ENGLAND, queen of the waves, whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee round, Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen found? Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken, acclaims thee crowned. Times may change, and the skies grow strange with signs of treason, and fraud, and fear: Foes in union of strange communion may rise against thee from far and near: Sloth and greed on thy strength may feed as cankers waxing from year to year. Yet, though treason and fierce unreason should league and lie and defame and smite, We that know thee, how far below thee the hatred burns of the sons of night, We that love thee, behold above thee the witness written of life in light. Life that shines from thee shows forth signs that none may read not but eyeless foes: Hate, born blind, in his abject mind grows hopeful now but as madness grows: Love, born wise, with exultant eyes adores thy glory, beholds and glows. Truth is in thee, and none may win thee to lie, forsaking the face of truth: Freedom lives by the grace she gives thee, born again from thy deathless youth: Faith should fail, and the world turn pale, wert thou the prey of the serpent's tooth. Greed and fraud, unabashed, unawed, may strive to sting thee at heel in vain : Craft and fear and mistrust may leer and mourn and murmur and plead and plain: Thou art thou: and thy sunbright brow is hers that blasted the strength of Spain. Mother, mother beloved, none other could claim in place of thee England's place: Earth bears none that beholds the sun so pure of record, so clothed with grace: Dear our mother, nor son nor brother is thine, as strong or as fair of face. How shall thou be abased? or how shall fear take hold of thy heart? of thine, England, maiden immortal, laden with charge of life and with hopes divine? Earth shall wither, when eyes turned hither behold not light in her darkness shine. England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy glory, free, Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he worships thee; None may sing thee: the sea-wind's wing beats down our songs as it hails the sea. Algernon Charles Swinburne. XCV A JACOBITE'S EXILE (1746) THE weary day rins down and dies, I would the day were night for me, For then would I stand in my ain fair land, O lordly flow the Loire and Seine, And the waves of Till that speak sae still O weel were they that fell fighting They keep their hame ayont the faem O sound they sleep, and saft, and deep, And ill we sleep, sae sair we weep, But sweet and fast sleep they; And the mool that haps them roun' and laps them Is e'en their country's clay; But the land we tread that are not dead Is strange as night by day. Strange as night in a strange man's sight, For what is here that a stranger's cheer The hills stand steep, the dells lie deep, The hill-streams sing, and the hill-sides ring, But hills and flowers are nane of ours, And ours are over sea: And the kind strange land whereon we stand, Or ever we came, wi' scathe and shame, To try what end might be. |