Part 4

His hand won back the sea for England's dower; His footfall bade the Moor change heart and cower; His word on Milton's tongue spake law to France When Piedmont felt the she-wolf Rome devour.

From Cromwell's eyes the light of England's glance Flashed, and bowed down the kings by grace of chance, The priest-anointed princes; one alone By grace of England held their hosts in trance.

The enthroned Republic from her kinglier throne Spake, and her speech was Cromwell's. Earth has known No lordlier presence. How should Cromwell stand With kinglets and with queenlings hewn in stone?

Incarnate England in his warrior hand Smote, and as fire devours the blackening brand Made ashes of their strengths who wrought her wrong, And turned the strongholds of her foes to sand.

His praise is in the sea's and Milton's song; What praise could reach him from the weakling throng That rules by leave of tongues whose praise is shame-- Him, who made England out of weakness strong?

There needs no clarion's blast of broad-blown fame To bid the world bear witness whence he came Who bade fierce Europe fawn at England's heel And purged the plague of lineal rule with flame.

There needs no witness graven on stone or steel For one whose work bids fame bow down and kneel; Our man of men, whose time-commanding name Speaks England, and proclaims her Commonweal.

_June 20, 1895._

[Footnote 1: Refused by the party of reaction and disunion in the House of Commons on the 17th of June, 1895.]

A WORD FOR THE NAVY

I

Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her The mightiest of seamen on earth, Bright England, whose glories adorn her And bid her rejoice in thy birth As others made mothers Rejoice in births sublime, She names thee, she claims thee, The lordliest child of time.

II

All hers is the praise of thy story, All thine is the love of her choice The light of her waves is thy glory, The sound of thy soul is her voice. They fear it who hear it And love not truth nor thee: They sicken, heart-stricken, Who see and would not see.

III

The lords of thy fate, and thy keepers Whose charge is the strength of thy ships, If now they be dreamers and sleepers, Or sluggards with lies at their lips, Thy haters and traitors, False friends or foes descried, Might scatter and shatter Too soon thy princely pride.

IV

Dark Muscovy, reptile in rancour, Base Germany, blatant in guile, Lay wait for thee riding at anchor On waters that whisper and smile. They deem thee or dream thee Less living now than dead, Deep sunken and drunken With sleep whence fear has fled.

V

And what though thy song as thine action Wax faint, and thy place be not known, While faction is grappling with faction, Twin curs with thy corpse for a bone? They care not, who spare not The noise of pens or throats; Who bluster and muster Blind ranks and bellowing votes.

VI

Let populace jangle with peerage And ministers shuffle their mobs; Mad pilots who reck not of steerage Though tempest ahead of them throbs. That throbbing and sobbing Of wind and gradual wave They hear not and fear not Who guide thee toward thy grave.

VII

No clamour of cries or of parties Is worth but a whisper from thee, While only the trust of thy heart is At one with the soul of the sea. In justice her trust is Whose time her tidestreams keep; They sink not, they shrink not, Time casts them not on sleep.

VIII

Sleep thou: for thy past was so royal, Love hardly would bid thee take heed Were Russia not faithful and loyal Nor Germany guiltless of greed. No nation, in station Of story less than thou, Re-risen from prison, Can stand against thee now.

IX

Sleep on: is the time not a season For strong men to slumber and sleep, And wise men to palter with treason? And that they sow tares, shall they reap? The wages of ages Wherein men smiled and slept, Fame fails them, shame veils them, Their record is not kept.

X

Nay, whence is it then that we know it, What wages were theirs, and what fame? Deep voices of prophet and poet Bear record against them of shame. Death, starker and darker Than seals the graveyard grate, Entombs them and dooms them To darkness deep as fate.

XI

But thou, though the world should misdoubt thee, Be strong as the seas at thy side; Bind on but thine armour about thee, That girds thee with power and with pride. Where Drake stood, where Blake stood, Where fame sees Nelson stand, Stand thou too, and now too Take thou thy fate in hand.

XII

At the gate of the sea, in the gateway, They stood as the guards of thy gate; Take now but thy strengths to thee straightway, Though late, we will deem it not late. Thy story, thy glory, The very soul of thee, It rose not, it grows not, It comes not save by sea.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Between our eastward and our westward sea The narrowing strand Clasps close the noblest shore fame holds in fee Even here where English birth seals all men free-- Northumberland.

The sea-mists meet across it when the snow Clothes moor and fell, And bid their true-born hearts who love it glow For joy that none less nobly born may know What love knows well.

The splendour and the strength of storm and fight Sustain the song That filled our fathers' hearts with joy to smite, To live, to love, to lay down life that right Might tread down wrong.

They warred, they sang, they triumphed, and they passed, And left us glad Here to be born, their sons, whose hearts hold fast The proud old love no change can overcast, No chance leave sad.

None save our northmen ever, none but we, Met, pledged, or fought Such foes and friends as Scotland and the sea With heart so high and equal, strong in glee And stern in thought.

Thought, fed from time's memorial springs with pride, Made strong as fire Their hearts who hurled the foe down Flodden side, And hers who rode the waves none else durst ride-- None save her sire.

O land beloved, where nought of legend's dream Outshines the truth, Where Joyous Gard, closed round with clouds that gleam For them that know thee not, can scarce but seem Too sweet for sooth,

Thy sons forget not, nor shall fame forget, The deed there done Before the walls whose fabled fame is yet A light too sweet and strong to rise and set With moon and sun.

Song bright as flash of swords or oars that shine Through fight or foam Stirs yet the blood thou hast given thy sons like wine To hail in each bright ballad hailed as thine One heart, one home.

Our Collingwood, though Nelson be not ours, By him shall stand Immortal, till those waifs of oldworld hours, Forgotten, leave uncrowned with bays and flowers Northumberland.

STRATFORD-ON-AVON

JUNE 27, 1901

Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered, Most royal and most loyal born of men, Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken. The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth, Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than Rome, Forgets not how of all on English earth Their trust is holiest, there who have their home. Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate The commonweal whose empire sets men free Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate A soul was born as boundless as the sea. If life, if love, if memory now be thine, Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign.

BURNS: AN ODE

A fire of fierce and laughing light That clove the shuddering heart of night Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might That pants and yearns Made fitful music round its flight: And earth saw Burns.

The joyous lightning found its voice And bade the heart of wrath rejoice And scorn uplift a song to voice The imperial hate That smote the God of base men's choice At God's own gate.

Before the shrine of dawn, wherethrough The lark rang rapture as she flew, It flashed and fired the darkling dew: And all that heard With love or loathing hailed anew A new day's word.

The servants of the lord of hell, As though their lord had blessed them, fell Foaming at mouth for fear, so well They knew the lie Wherewith they sought to scan and spell The unsounded sky.

And Calvin, night's prophetic bird, Out of his home in hell was heard Shrieking; and all the fens were stirred Whence plague is bred; Can God endure the scoffer's word? But God was dead.

The God they made them in despite Of man and woman, love and light, Strong sundawn and the starry night, The lie supreme, Shot through with song, stood forth to sight A devil's dream.

And he that bent the lyric bow And laid the lord of darkness low And bade the fire of laughter glow Across his grave, And bade the tides above it flow, Wave hurtling wave,

Shall he not win from latter days More than his own could yield of praise? Ay, could the sovereign singer's bays Forsake his brow, The warrior's, won on stormier ways, Still clasp it now.

He loved, and sang of love: he laughed, And bade the cup whereout he quaffed Shine as a planet, fore and aft, And left and right, And keen as shoots the sun's first shaft Against the night.

But love and wine were moon and sun For many a fame long since undone, And sorrow and joy have lost and won By stormy turns As many a singer's soul, if none More bright than Burns.

And sweeter far in grief or mirth Have songs as glad and sad of birth Found voice to speak of wealth or dearth In joy of life: But never song took fire from earth More strong for strife.

The daisy by his ploughshare cleft, The lips of women loved and left, The griefs and joys that weave the weft Of human time, With craftsman's cunning, keen and deft, He carved in rhyme.

But Chaucer's daisy shines a star Above his ploughshare's reach to mar, And mightier vision gave Dunbar More strenuous wing To hear around all sins that are Hell dance and sing.

And when such pride and power of trust In song's high gift to arouse from dust Death, and transfigure love or lust Through smiles or tears In golden speech that takes no rust From cankering years,

As never spake but once in one Strong star-crossed child of earth and sun, Villon, made music such as none May praise or blame, A crown of starrier flower was won Than Burns may claim.

But never, since bright earth was born In rapture of the enkindling morn, Might godlike wrath and sunlike scorn That was and is And shall be while false weeds are worn Find word like his.

Above the rude and radiant earth That heaves and glows from firth to firth In vale and mountain, bright in dearth And warm in wealth, Which gave his fiery glory birth By chance and stealth,

Above the storms of praise and blame That blur with mist his lustrous name, His thunderous laughter went and came, And lives and flies; The roar that follows on the flame When lightning dies.

Earth, and the snow-dimmed heights of air, And water winding soft and fair Through still sweet places, bright and bare, By bent and byre, Taught him what hearts within them were: But his was fire.

THE COMMONWEAL

A SONG FOR UNIONISTS

Men, whose fathers braved the world in arms against our isles in union, Men, whose brothers met rebellion face to face, Show the hearts ye have, if worthy long descent and high communion, Show the spirits, if unbroken, of your race.

What are these that howl and hiss across the strait of westward water? What is he who floods our ears with speech in flood? See the long tongue lick the dripping hand that smokes and reeks of slaughter! See the man of words embrace the man of blood!

Hear the plea whereby the tonguester mocks and charms the gazing gaper-- "We are they whose works are works of love and peace; Till disunion bring forth union, what is union, sirs, but paper? Break and rend it, then shall trust and strength increase."

Who would fear to trust a double-faced but single-hearted dreamer, Pure of purpose, clean of hand, and clear of guile? "Life is well-nigh spent," he sighs; "you call me shuffler, trickster, schemer? I am old--when young men yell at me, I smile."

Many a year that priceless light of life has trembled, we remember, On the platform of extinction--unextinct; Many a month has been for him the long year's last--life's calm December: Can it be that he who said so, saying so, winked?

No; the lust of life, the thirst for work and days with work to do in, Drove and drives him down the road of splendid shame; All is well, if o'er the monument recording England's ruin Time shall read, inscribed in triumph, Gladstone's name.

Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and tongues yet black with lies, Clap and clamour--"Parnell spurs his Gladstone well!" Truth, unscared and undeluded by their praise or blame, replies-- "Is the goal of fraud and bloodshed heaven or hell?"

Old men eloquent, who truckle to the traitors of the time, Love not office--power is no desire of theirs: What if yesterday their hearts recoiled from blood and fraud and crime? Conscience erred--an error which to-day repairs.

Conscience only now convinces them of strange though transient error: Only now they see how fair is treason's face; See how true the falsehood, just the theft, and blameless is the terror, Which replaces just and blameless men in place.

Place and time decide the right and wrong of thought and word and action; Crime is black as hell, till virtue gain its vote; Then--but ah, to think or say so smacks of fraud or smells of faction!-- Mercy holds the door while Murder hacks the throat.

Murder? Treason? Theft? Poor brothers who succumb to such temptations, Shall we lay on you or take on us the blame? Reason answers, and religion echoes round to wondering nations, "Not with Ireland, but with England rests the shame."

Reason speaks through mild religion's organ, loud and long and lusty-- Profit speaks through lips of patriots pure and true-- "English friends, whose trust we ask for, has not England found us trusty? Not for us we seek advancement, but for you.

"Far and near the world bears witness of our wisdom, courage, honour; Egypt knows if there our fame burns bright or dim. Let but England trust as Gordon trusted, soon shall come upon her Such deliverance as our daring brought on him.

"Far and wide the world rings record of our faith, our constant dealing, Love of country, truth to friends, contempt for foes. Sign once more the bond of trust in us that here awaits but sealing, We will give yet more than all our record shows.

"Perfect ruin, shame eternal, everlasting degradation, Freedom bought and sold, truth bound and treason free." Yet an hour is here for answer; now, if here be yet a nation, Answer, England, man by man from sea to sea!

_June 30, 1886._

THE QUESTION

1887

Shall England consummate the crime That binds the murderer's hand, and leaves No surety for the trust of thieves? Time pleads against it--truth and time-- And pity frowns and grieves.

The hoary henchman of the gang Lifts hands that never dew nor rain May cleanse from Gordon's blood again, Appealing: pity's tenderest pang Thrills his pure heart with pain.

Grand helmsman of the clamorous crew, The good grey recreant quakes and weeps To think that crime no longer creeps Safe toward its end: that murderers too May die when mercy sleeps.

While all the lives were innocent That slaughter drank, and laughed with rage, Bland virtue sighed, "A former age Taught murder: souls long discontent Can aught save blood assuage?

"You blame not Russian hands that smite By fierce and secret ways the power That leaves not life one chainless hour; Have these than they less natural right To claim life's natural dower?

"The dower that freedom brings the slave She weds, is vengeance: why should we, Whom equal laws acclaim as free, Think shame, if men too blindly brave Steal, murder, skulk, and flee?

"At kings they strike in Russia: there Men take their life in hand who slay Kings: these, that have not heart to lay Hand save on girls whose ravaged hair Is made the patriot's prey,

"These, whom the sight of old men slain Makes bold to bid their children die, Starved, if they hold not peace, nor lie, Claim loftier praise: could others deign To stand in shame so high?

"Could others deign to dare such deeds As holiest Ireland hallows? Nay, But justice then makes plain our way: Be laws burnt up like burning weeds That vex the face of day.

"Shall bloodmongers be held of us Blood-guilty? Hands reached out for gold Whereon blood rusts not yet, we hold Bloodless and blameless: ever thus Have good men held of old.

"Fair Freedom, fledged and imped with lies, Takes flight by night where murder lurks, And broods on murderous ways and works, Yet seems not hideous in our eyes As Austrians or as Turks.

"Be it ours to undo a woful past, To bid the bells of concord chime, To break the bonds of suffering crime, Slack now, that some would make more fast: Such teaching comes of time."

So pleads the gentlest heart that lives, Whose pity, pitiless for all Whom darkling terror holds in thrall, Toward none save miscreants yearns, and gives Alms of warm tears--and gall.

Hear, England, and obey: for he Who claims thy trust again to-day Is he who left thy sons a prey To shame whence only death sets free: Hear, England, and obey.

Thy spoils he gave to deck the Dutch; Thy noblest pride, most pure, most brave, To death forlorn and sure he gave; Nor now requires he overmuch Who bids thee dig thy grave.

Dig deep the grave of shame, wherein Thy fame, thy commonweal, must lie; Put thought of aught save terror by; To strike and slay the slayer is sin; And Murder must not die.

Bind fast the true man; loose the thief; Shamed were the land, the laws accursed, Were guilt, not innocence, amerced; And dark the wrong and sore the grief, Were tyrants too coerced.

The fiercest cowards that ever skulked, The cowardliest hounds that ever lapped Blood, if their horde be tracked and trapped, And justice claim their lives for mulct, Gnash teeth that flashed and snapped.

Bow down for fear, then, England: bow, Lest worse befall thee yet; and swear That nought save pity, conscience, care For truth and mercy, moves thee now To call foul falsehood fair.

So shalt thou live in shame, and hear The lips of all men laugh thee dead; The wide world's mockery round thy head Shriek like a storm-wind: and a bier Shall be thine honour's bed.

APOSTASY

_Et Judas m'a dit: Traître!_--VICTOR HUGO

I

Truths change with time, and terms with truth. To-day A statesman worships union, and to-night Disunion. Shame to have sinned against the light Confounds not but impels his tongue to unsay What yestereve he swore. Should fear make way For treason? honour change her livery? fright Clasp hands with interest? wrong pledge faith with right? Religion, mercy, conscience, answer--Yea.

To veer is not to veer: when votes are weighed, The numerous tongue approves him renegade Who cannot change his banner: he that can Sits crowned with wreaths of praise too pure to fade. Truth smiles applause on treason's poisonous plan: And Cleon is an honourable man.

II

Pure faith, fond hope, sweet love, with God for guide, Move now the men whose blameless error cast In prison (ah, but love condones the past!) Their subject knaves that were--their lords that ride Now laughing on their necks, and now bestride Their vassal backs in triumph. Faith stands fast Though fear haul down the flag that crowned her mast And hope and love proclaim that truth has lied.

Turn, turn, and turn--so bids the still small voice, The changeless voice of honour. He that stands Where all his life he stood, with bribeless hands, With tongue unhired to mourn, reprove, rejoice, Curse, bless, forswear, and swear again, and lie, Stands proven apostate in the apostate's eye.

III

Fraud shrinks from faith: at sight of swans, the raven Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast In fear of poison when a bird flies past. Thersites brands Achilles as a craven; The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast: And Bacon sees the traitor's mark engraven Full on the front of Essex. Grief and shame Obscure the chaste and sunlike spirit of Oates At thought of Russell's treason; and the name Of Milton sickens with superb disgust The heaving heart of Waller. Wisdom dotes, If wisdom turns not tail and licks not dust.

IV