Astrophel and Other Poems/England: an Ode
ENGLAND: AN ODE.
I.
and rising sun
Clasp and lighten in climes that brighten with day when
day that was here is done,
Call aloud on their children, proud with trust that future
and past are one.
Far and near from the swan's nest here the storm-birds
bred of her fair white breast,
Sons whose home was the sea-wave's foam, have borne
the fame of her east and west;
North and south has the storm-wind's mouth rung praise
of England and England's quest.
Fame, wherever her flag flew, never forbore to fly with
an equal wing:
France and Spain with their warrior train bowed down
before her as thrall to king;
India knelt at her feet, and felt her sway more fruitful of
life than spring.
Darkness round them as iron bound fell off from races of
elder name,
Slain at sight of her eyes, whose light bids freedom
lighten and burn as flame;
Night endures not the touch that cures of kingship
tyrants, and slaves of shame.
All the terror of time, where error and fear were lords of
a world of slaves,
Age on age in resurgent rage and anguish darkening as
waves on waves,
Fell or fled from a face that shed such grace as quickens
the dust of graves.
Things of night at her glance took flight: the strengths
of darkness recoiled and sank:
Sank the fires of the murderous pyres whereon wild
agony writhed and shrank:
Rose the light of the reign of right from gulfs of years
that the darkness drank.
Yet the might of her wings in flight, whence glory lightens
and music rings,
Loud and bright as the dawn's, shall smite and still the
discord of evil things,
Yet not slain by her radiant reign, but darkened now by
her sail-stretched wings.
II.
slain,
Stilled the discord, slew the darkness, bade the lights of
tempest wane,
Where the deathless dawn of England rose in sign that
right should reign.
Mercy, where the tiger wallowed mad and blind with
blood and lust,
Justice, where the jackal yelped and fed, and slaves
allowed it just,
Rose as England's light on Asia rose, and smote them
down to dust.
Justice bright as mercy, mercy girt by justice with her
sword,
Smote and saved and raised and ruined, till the tyrant
ridden horde
Saw the lightning fade from heaven and knew the sun
for God and lord.
Where the footfall sounds of England, where the smile of
England shines,
Rings the tread and laughs the face of freedom, fair as
hope divines
Days to be, more brave than ours and lit by lordlier stars
for signs.
All our past acclaims our future: Shakespeare's voice
and Nelson's hand,
Milton's faith and Wordsworth's trust in this our chosen
and chainless land,
Bear us witness: come the world against her, England
yet shall stand.
Earth and sea bear England witness if he lied who said
it; he
Whom the winds that ward her, waves that clasp, and
herb and flower and tree
Fed with English dews and sunbeams, hail as more than
man may be.
No man ever spake as he that bade our England be but
true,
Keep but faith with England fast and firm, and none
should bid her rue;
None may speak as he: but all may know the sign that
Shakespeare knew.
III.
noon, from the heights of the night that shine,
Hope, faith, and remembrance of glory that found but in
England her throne and her shrine,
Speak louder than song may proclaim them, that here is
the seal of them set for a sign.
And loud as the sea's voice thunders applause of the land
that is one with the sea
Speaks Time in the ear of the people that never at heart
was not inly free
The word of command that assures us of life, if we will
but that life shall be;
If the race that is first of the races of men who behold
unashamed the sun
Stand fast and forget not the sign that is given of the
years and the wars that are done,
The token that all who are born of its blood should in
heart as in blood be one.
The word of remembrance that lightens as fire from the
steeps of the storm-lit past
Bids only the faith of our fathers endure in us, firm as
they held it fast:
That the glory which was from the first upon England
alone may endure to the last.
That the love and the hate may change not, the faith
may not fade, nor the wrath nor scorn,
That shines for her sons and that burns for her foemen
as fire of the night or the morn:
That the births of her womb may forget not the sign of
the glory wherein they were born.
A light that is more than the sunlight, an air that is
brighter than morning's breath,
Clothes England about as the strong sea clasps her, and
answers the word that it saith;
The word that assures her of life if she change not, and
choose not the ways of death.
Change darkens and lightens around her, alternate in
hope and in fear to be:
Hope knows not if fear speak truth, nor fear whether
hope be not blind as she:
But the sun is in heaven that beholds her immortal, and
girdled with life by the sea.