Classic Poem

I

Now be the banners waved, the bugles blown,
And rally round the King, for in his heart
Beats the red blood of England. On his throne
He sitteth not aloof and not alone:
We in his pomp and empery have part;
His sceptre and dominion are our own;
And in his puissance is our puissance shown.
No mortal man is he of common clay,
Born yesterday,
And dead to-morrow;
His future and his past, in proud array,
Stretch far away;
His spiritual sway
Is wide as England's joy and England's sorrow.

II

On ocean and on moor, on throne and street
Dead men are with him. In his pulses beat
Battles and loves of England-that-has-been.
Resurgent from the dust beneath his feet
Arise the buried forms of king and queen.
For him is no escape;
Where'er he turns
The Past takes vivid shape,
And breathes and burns.
For him is no escape from all the vast
Graveland and cradleland of England's Past,
Nor from the future dare he shrink and cower
Whose fame and power
The boundaries of the present must outlast.

III

O, mighty England-of-the-Past is he,
And England also of the days that are,
And England of the greater days to be —
Stretching afar
Across the conquered sea;
And lacking him, our Present lacking root
Would lose its sap, and the maturing fruit
Would ripen not, but moulder and decay, —
For still to-morrow lives on yesterday —
And we as creatures " of divine discourse,
Looking before and after, " lose our force
Of heart and soul,
Forgetful of our little pristine source,
Neglectful of our great imperial goal.

IV

Also, a nation that is so enorme
Must lose all Sense-of-Self and Self-control,
Unless by Symbol we can give it form,
Unless, by love, can give the Symbol soul.
We find that Symbol in the King: in him —
Body and Limb —
We see the Empire humanised and whole.
A Symbol is the King, and yet a sword;
A Symbol, yet two living human hands,
Whose touch can join to a harmonious chord
The clashing notes of separated lands.
A Symbol! But such wonder
Lies thereunder,
Such truth and such reality behind,
That lacking it, our land would fall asunder,
Lacking the love and brotherhood that bind
People in nations, nations in mankind.
Then let us to the throne our homage bring,
And rally, rally, rally round the King!