Never did nation's need evoke
Hero like him for aid, the while
A Continent was cannon-smoke
Or peace in
slavery: this one Isle
Reflecting Nature: this one man
Her sea-hound and her
mortal stroke,
With war-worn body aye in battle's van.
And do we love him well, as well
As he his country, we may greet,
With hand on steel, our passing bell
Nigh on the swing, for prelude sweet
To the music heard when his last
breathHung on its ebb beside the knell,
And VICTORY in his ear sang
gracious Death.
Ah, day of glory! day of tears!
Day of a people bowed as one!
Behold across those hundred years
The lion flash of gun at gun:
Our bitter pride; our love bereaved;
What pall of cloud o'ercame our sun
That day, to bear his
wreath, the end achieved.
Joy that no more with murder's frown
The ancient rivals bark apart.
Now Nelson to brave France is shown
A hero after her own heart:
And he now scanning that quick race,
To whom through life his glove was thrown,
Would know a sister spirit to embrace.
THE CENTENARY OF GARIBALDI
We who have seen Italia in the throes,
Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and now
Like a ripe field of wheat where once drove plough
All
bounteous as she is fair, we think of those
Who blew the
breath of life into her frame:
Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi: Three:
Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword; and set her free
From ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim.
That aim,
albeit they were of minds diverse,
Conjoined them, not to
strive without surcease;
For them could be no babblement of peace
While lay their country under Slavery's curse.
The set of torn Italia's
glorious day
Was ever
sunrise in each
filial breast.
Of eagle beaks by
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righteousness unblest
They felt her pulsing body made the prey.
Wherefore they struck, and had to count their dead.
With bitter smile of
resolution nerved
To try new issues,
holding faith unswerved,
Promise they gathered from the rich blood shed.
In them Italia,
visible to us then
As living, rose; for proof that huge brute Force
Has never being from
celestial source,
And is the lord of cravens, not of men.
Now breaking up the crust of temporal strife,
Who reads their acts enshrined in History, sees
That Tyrants were the Revolutionaries,
The Rebels men heart-vowed to
hallowed life.
Pure as the Archangel's cleaving Darkness thro',
The Sword he sees, the keen unwearied Sword,
A single blade against a circling horde,
And aye for Freedom and the trampled few.
The cry of Liberty from
dungeon cell,
From exile, was his God's command to smite,
As for a swim in sea he joined the fight,
With
radiant face, full sure that he did well.
Behold a
warriordealingmortal strokes,
Whose nature was a child's: amid his foes
A wary trickster: at the battle's close,
No gentler friend this
leopard dashed with fox.
Down the long roll of History will run
The story of these deeds, and speed his race
Beneath defeat more hotly to embrace
The noble cause and trust to another sun.
And lo, that sun is in Italia's skies
This day, by grace of his good sword in part.
It beckons her to keep a
warrior heart
For guard of beauty, all too sweet a prize.
Earth gave him:
blessed be the Earth that gave.
Earth's Master crowned his honest work on earth:
Proudly Italia names his place of birth:
The bosom of Humanity his grave.
THE WILD ROSE
High climbs June's wild rose,
Her bush all blooms in a swarm;
And swift from the bud she blows,
In a day when the wooer is warm;
Frank to receive and give,
Her bosom is open to bee and sun:
Pride she has none,
Nor shame she knows;
Happy to live.
Unlike those of the garden nigh,
Her queenly sisters enthroned by art;
Loosening petals one by one
To the fiery Passion's dart
Superbly shy.
For them in some glory of hair,
Or nest of the heaving mounds to lie,
Or path of the bride bestrew.
Ever are they the theme for song.
But
nought of that is her share.
Hardly from wayfarers tramping along,
A glance they care not to renew.
And she at a word of the claims of kin
Shrinks to the level of roads and meads:
She is only a plain
princess of the weeds,
As an outcast witless of sin:
Much disregarded, save by the few
Who love her, that has not a spot of deceit,
No promise of sweet beyond sweet,
Often descending to sour.
On any fair breast she would die in an hour.
Praises she
scarce could bear,
Were any wild poet to praise.
Her aim is to rise into light and air.
One of the darlings of Earth, no more,
And little it seems in the dusty ways,
Unless to the grasses nodding beneath;
The bird clapping wings to soar,
The clouds of an evetide's
wreath.
THE CALL
Under what spell are we debased
By fears for our inviolate Isle,
Whose record is of dangers faced
And flung to heel with even smile?
Is it a vaster force, a subtler guile?
They say Exercitus designs
To match the famed Salsipotent
Where on her sceptre she reclines;
Awake: but were a
slumber sent
By
guilty gods, more fell his foul intent.
The subtler web, the vaster foe,
Well may we meet when drilled for deeds:
But in these days of
wealth at flow,
A word of breezy
warning breeds
The pained responses seen in lakeside reeds.
We fain would stand contemplative,
All
innocent as
meadow grass;
In human
goodness fain believe,
Believe a cloud is formed to pass;
Its shadows chase with draughts of hippocras.
Others have gone; the way they went
Sweet sunny now, and safe our nest.
Humanity, enlightenment,
Against the
warning hum protest:
Let the world hear that we know what is best.
So do the beatific speak;
Yet have they ears, and eyes as well;
And if not with a paler cheek,
They feel the shivers in them dwell,
That something of a
dubious future tell.
For huge possessions render slack
The power we need to hold them fast;
Save when a quickened heart shall make
Our people one, to meet what blast
May blow from temporal heavens overcast.
Our people one! Nor they with strength
Dependent on a single arm:
Alert, and braced the whole land's length,
Rejoicing in their manhood's charm
For friend or foe; to succour, not to harm.
Has ever
weakness won esteem?
Or counts it as a prized ally?
They who have read in History deem
It ranks among the slavish fry,
Whose claim to live justiciary Fates deny.
It can not be declared we are
A nation till from end to end
The land can show such front to war
As bids a crouching foe expend
His ire in air, and preferably be friend.
We dreading him, we do him wrong;
For fears discolour, fears invite.
Like him, our task is to be strong;
Unlike him, claiming not by might
To
snatch an envied treasure as a right.
So may a stouter brotherhood
At home be signalled over sea
For
righteous, and be understood,
Nay, welcomed, when 'tis shown that we
All duties have embraced in being free.
This Britain
slumbering, she is rich;
Lies
placid as a cradled child;
At times with an
uneasy twitch,
That tells of dreams unduly wild.
Shall she be with a foreign drug defiled?
The
grandeur of her deeds recall;
Look on her face so kindly fair:
This Britain! and were she to fall,
Mankind would
breathe a harsher air,
The nations miss a light of leading rare.
ON COMO
A rainless darkness drew o'er the lake
As we lay in our boat with oars unshipped.
It seemed neither cloud nor water awake,
And forth of the low black curtain slipped
Thunderless
lightning. Scoff no more
At angels imagined in
downward flight
For the daughters of earth as fabled of yore:
Here was beauty might well invite
Dark heavens to gleam with the fire of a sun