Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The British Empire

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Claudian4339499Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems — The British Empire1895Edwin Arnold


THE BRITISH EMPIRE

FROM CLAUDIAN

(De secundo Consulatu Stilichonis.)

"Hæc est in gremium Victos quæ sola recepit
Humanumque genus communi nomine fovit
Malris non dominæ ritu: civesque vocavit
Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxit."

She alone knew, of victors first and best,
To fold the vanquished to her pardoning breast:
To gather 'neath her wings, in one great brood,
The tribes of Man, by might, then love, subdued,
Mother, not Queen, calling those sons by birth
Whom she had conquered—linking ends of Earth.