Classic Poem

I

Eight hundred years and twenty-one
?Have shone and sunken since the land
?Whose name is freedom bore such brand
As marks a captive, and the sun
?Beheld her fettered hand.
II

But ere dark time had shed as rain
?Or sown on sterile earth as seed
?That bears no fruit save tare and weed
An age and half an age again,
?She rose on Runnymede.
III

Out of the shadow, starlike still,
?She rose up radiant in her right,
?And spake, and put to fear and flight
The lawless rule of awless will
?That pleads no right save might.
IV

Nor since hath England ever borne
?The burden laid on subject lands,
?The rule that curbs and binds all hands
Save one, and marks for servile scorn
?The heads it bows and brands.
V

A commonweal arrayed and crowned
?With gold and purple, girt with steel
?At need, that foes must fear or feel,
We find her, as our fathers found,
?Earth's lordliest commonweal.
VI

And now that fifty years are flown
?Since in a maiden's hand the sign
?Of empire that no seas confine
First as a star to seaward shone,
?We see their record shine.
VII

A troubled record, foul and fair,
?A simple record and serene,
?Inscribes for praise a blameless queen.
For praise and blame an age of care
?And change and ends unseen.
VIII

Hope, wide of eye and wild of wing,
?Rose with the sundawn of a reign
?Whose grace should make the rough ways plain,
And fill the worn old world with spring,
?And heal its heart of pain.
IX

Peace was to be on earth; men's hope
?Was holier than their fathers had,
?Their wisdom not more wise than glad:
They saw the gates of promise ope,
?And heard what love's lips bade.
X

Love armed with knowledge, winged and wise.
?Should hush the wind of war, and see,
?They said, the sun of days to be
Bring round beneath serener skies
?A stormless jubilee.
XI

Time, in the darkness unbeholden
?That hides him from the sight of fear
?And lets but dreaming hope draw near,
Smiled and was sad to hear such golden
?Strains hail the all-golden year.
XII

Strange clouds have risen between, and wild
?Red stars of storm that lit the abyss
?Wherein fierce fraud and violence kiss
And mock such promise as beguiled
?The fiftieth year from this.
XIII

War upon war, change after change,
?Hath shaken thrones and towers to dust,
?And hopes austere and faiths august
Have watched in patience stern and strange
?Men's works unjust and just
XIV

As from some Alpine watch-tower's portal
?Night, living yet, looks forth for dawn,
?So from time's mistier mountain lawn
The spirit of man, in trust immortal
?Yearns toward a hope withdrawn
XV

The morning comes not, yet the night
?Wanes, and men's eyes win strength to see
?Where twilight is, where light shall be
When conquered wrong and conquering right
?Acclaim a world set free.
XVI

Calm as our mother-land, the mother
?Of faith and freedom, pure and wise,
?Keeps watch beneath unchangeful skies,
When hath she watched the woes of other
?Strange lands with alien eyes?
XVII

Calm as she stands alone, what nation
?Hath lacked an alms from English hands?
?What exiles from what stricken lands
Have lacked the shelter of the station
?Where higher than all she stands?
XVIII

Though time discrown and change dismantle
?The pride of thrones and towers that frown,
?How should they bring her glories down—
The sea cast round her like a mantle,
?The sea-cloud like a crown?
XIX

The sea, divine as heaven and deathless,
?Is hers, and none but only she
?Hath learnt the sea's word, none but we
Her children hear in heart the breathless
?Bright watchword of the sea.
XX

Heard not of others, or misheard
?Of many a land for many a year,
?The watchword Freedom fails not here
Of hearts that witness if the word
?Find faith in England's ear.
XXI

She, first to love the light, and daughter
?Incarnate of the northern dawn,
?She, round whose feet the wild waves fawn
When all their wrath of warring water
?Sounds like a babe's breath drawn,
XXII

How should not she best know, love best,
?And best of all souls understand
?The very soul of freedom, scanned
Far off, sought out in darkling quest
?By men at heart unmanned?
XXIII

They climb and fall, ensnared, enshrouded,
?By mists of words and toils they set
?To take themselves, till fierce regret
Grows mad with shame, and all their clouded
?Red skies hang sunless yet.
XXIV

But us the sun, not wholly risen
?Nor equal now for all, illumes
?With more of light than cloud that looms;
Of light that leads forth souls from prison
?And breaks the seals of tombs.
XXV

Did not her breasts who reared us rear
?Him who took heaven in hand, and weighed
?Bright world with world in balance laid?
What Newton's might could make not clear
?Hath Darwin's might not made?
XXVI

The forces of the dark dissolve,
?The doorways of the dark are broken:
?The word that casts out night is spoken,
And whence the springs of things evolve
?Light born of night bears token.
XXVII

She, loving light for light's sake only,
?And truth for only truth's, and song
?For song's sake and the sea's, how long
Hath she not borne the world her lonely
?Witness of right and wrong?
XXVIII

From light to light her eyes imperial
?Turn, and require the further light,
?More perfect than the sun's in sight,
Till star and sun seem all funereal
?Lamps of the vaulted night.
XXIX

She gazes till the strenuous soul
?Within the rapture of her eyes
?Creates or bids awake, arise,
The light she looks for, pure and whole
?And worshipped of the wise.
XXX

Such sons are hers, such radiant hands
?Have borne abroad her lamp of old,
?Such mouths of honey-dropping gold
Have sent across all seas and lands
?Her fame as music rolled.
XXXI

As music made of rolling thunder
?That hurls through heaven its heart sublime,
?Its heart of joy, in charging chime,
So ring the songs that round and under
?Her temple surge and climb.
XXXII

A temple not by men's hands builded,
?But moulded of the spirit, and wrought
?Of passion and imperious thought;
With light beyond all sunlight gilded,
?Whereby the sun seems nought.
XXXIII

Thy shrine, our mother, seen for fairer
?Than even thy natural face, made fair
?With kisses of thine April air
Even now, when spring thy banner-bearer
?Took up thy sign to bear;
XXXIV

Thine annual sign from heaven's own arch
?Given of the sun's hand into thine,
?To rear and cheer each wildwood shrine
But now laid waste by wild-winged March,
?March, mad with wind like wine.
XXXV

From all thy brightening downs whereon
?The windy seaward whin-flower shows
?Blossom whose pride strikes pale the rose
Forth is the golden watchword gone
?Whereat the world's face glows.
XXXVI

Thy quickening woods rejoice and ring
?Till earth seems glorious as the sea:
?With yearning love too glad for glee
The world's heart quivers toward the spring
?As all our hearts toward thee.
XXXVII

Thee, mother, thee, our queen, who givest
?Assurance to the heavens most high
?And earth whereon her bondsmen sigh
That by the sea's grace while thou livest
?Hope shall not wholly die.
XXXVIII

That while thy free folk hold the van
?Of all men, and the sea-spray shed
?As dew more heavenly on thy head
Keeps bright thy face in sight of man
?Man's pride shall drop not dead.
XXXIX

A pride more pure than humblest prayer,
?More wise than wisdom born of doubt,
?Girds for thy sake men's hearts about
With trust and triumph that despair
?And fear may cast not out.
XL

Despair may wring men's hearts, and fear
?Bow down their heads to kiss the dust,
?Where patriot memories rot and rust,
And change makes faint a nation's cheer,
?And faith yields up her trust.
XLI

Not here this year have true men known,
?Not here this year may true men know,
?That brand of shame-compelling woe
Which bids but brave men shrink or groan
?And lays but honour low.
XLII

The strong spring wind blows notes of praise,
?And hallowing pride of heart, and cheer
?Unchanging, toward all true men here
Who hold the trust of ancient days
?High as of old this year.
XLIII

The days that made thee great are dead;
?The days that now must keep thee great
?Lie not in keeping of thy fate;
In thine they lie, whose heart and head
?Sustain thy charge of state.
XLIV

No state so proud, no pride so just,
?The sun, through clouds at sunrise curled
?Or clouds across the sunset whirled,
Hath sight of, nor has man such trust
?As thine in all the world.
XLV

Each hour that sees the sunset's crest
?Make bright thy shores ere day decline
?Sees dawn the sun on shores of thine,
Sees west as east and east as west
?On thee their sovereign shine.
XLVI

The sea's own heart must needs wax proud
?To have borne the world a child like thee.
?What birth of earth might ever be
Thy sister? Time, a wandering cloud,
?Is sunshine on thy sea.
XLVII

Change mars not her; and thee, our mother,
?What change that irks or moves thee mars?
?What shock that shakes? what chance that jars?
Time gave thee, as he gave none other,
?A station like a star's.
XLVIII

The storm that shrieks, the wind that wages
?War with the wings of hopes that climb
?Too high toward heaven in doubt sublime,
Assail not thee, approved of ages
?The towering crown of time.
XLIX

Toward thee this year thy children turning
?With souls uplift of changeless cheer
?Salute with love that casts out fear,
With hearts for beacons round thee burning,
?The token of this year.
L

With just and sacred jubilation
?Let earth sound answer to the sea
?For witness, blown on winds as free,
How England, how her crowning nation,
?Acclaims this jubilee.