Classic Poem

E NGLAND , thou breeder of heroes and of bards,
Had ever nation manlier shield or song!
For thee such rivalry have sword and pen,
Fame, from her heaped green, crowns with equal hand
The deathless deed and the immortal word,
For which dost thou thy Sidney hold more dear,
Defense of England or of Poesie?
Cromwell or Milton—if man's guiding stars
Could vanish as they came—which wouldst thou spare?
Lost Kempenfelt indeed, were Cowper mute!
To victory, not alone on shuddering seas
Rode Nelson, but on Campbell's tossing rhyme.
Hark to thy great Duke's greater dirge, and doubt
For which was Waterloo the worthier won,
To change the tyrant on a foreign throne,
Or add a faultless ode to English song.
Great deeds make poets: by whose nobler word,
In turn, the blood of heroes is transfused
Into the veins of sluggards, till they rise,
Surprised, exalted to the height of men.

Nor can Columbia choose between the two
Which give more glory to thy Minster gloom.
They are our brave, our deathless, our divine—
Our Saxon grasp on their embattled swords,
Our Saxon numbers in their lyric speech.
We grudge no storied wreath, nay, would withhold
Of bay or laurel not one envied leaf.
Then, on thy proud cliff fronting Europe-ward,
Strong in thyself, not by some weaker prop,
Give to the greeting of a kindred voice
A moment in the ebb of thy disdain.