Thy dark eyes open'd not, Nor first reveal'd themselves to English air, For there is nothing here Which, from the outward to the inward brought, Moulded thy baby thought....
O thou that sendest out the man To rule by land and sea, Strong mother of a Lion-line, Be proud of those strong sons of thine Who wrench'd their rights from thee!
Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm; And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands; Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher...
Thy prayer was 'Light-more Light-while Time shall last!' Thou rawest a glory growing on the night, But not the shadows which that light would cast, Till shadows vanish in the Light of Light.
Warrior of God, man's friend, and tyrant's foe, Now somewhere dead far in the waste Soudan, Thou livest in all hearts, for all men know This earth has never borne a nobler man.
Thou third great Canning, stand among our best And noblest, now thy long day's work hath ceased, Here silent in our Minster of the West Who wert the voice of England in the East.
I. Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best, Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope or break thy rest, Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling...
O love, Love, Love! O withering might! O sun, that from thy noonday height Shudderest when I strain my sight, Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light, Lo, falling from my constant mind,...
Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower'but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all,...
I. 'He is fled'I wish him dead' He that wrought my ruin' O the flattery and the craft Which were my undoing . . . In the night, in the night, When the storms are blowing.
Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row! So they row'd, and there we landed''O venusta Sirmio!' There to me thro' all the groves of olive in the summer glow,...
O thou most holy Friendship! wheresoe'er Thy dwelling be'for in the courts of man But seldom thine all-heavenly voice we hear, Sweet'ning the moments of our narrow span;...
The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away....
O purblind race of miserable men, How many among us at this very hour Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves, By taking true for false, or false for true; Here, through the feeble twilight of this world...
I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To match the three tall spires; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this:'...
Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat There in the holy house at Almesbury Weeping, none with her save a little maid, A novice: one low light betwixt them burned...
First pledge our Queen this solemn night, Then drink to England, every guest; That man's the best Cosmopolite Who loves his native country best. May freedom's oak for ever live...