Earth boasts one HOMER; we, one yet more high, SHAKESPEARE. If Florence hush her soul in awe, Naming her DANTE, hell, and heaven's sweet air Were breathed by MILTON. Who to wisdom taught How to be wisest? BACON. NEWTON lived, And God's dread secrets straight man wondering read, And all the worlds revolved in order'd law.
WATT made the might of Nature's primal powers Our toiling bondslaves. DRAKE and wandering Cook, PARRY and PARK and all their fellows trod
Billow and land, and made them paths to man. Look, knowledge lightens thought from land to land; That did our WHEATSTONE. Fame, to name our great, Were weary ere the flaming roll were told, And still she writes, what glories! on the scroll, Courage and wisdom kin to greatness gone, Those that the blasting path to Lucknow trod, And smote curst Delhi and its brood of hell, HAVELOCK and LAWRENCE-names fit mates to those Who broke the dusky ranks at Plassy first,
And far Assaye, and crush'd Ameer and Sikh At Meeanee and red Ferozeshah,
And crowned our brows with empire. Crecy's fame, And mailed Poictiers' and Agincourt's had heirs In Blenheim and Corunna, and the fields Of WELLINGTON-Vittoria and its peers, And the wild, earth-felt shock of Waterloo.
O ye old sea-kings, to whom your tossed decks Were thrones to rule the lands from, from you sprung, In us lives on your scorn of all that pales Weakness-in us your hunger of renown. Sea-roamers-grapplers with the might of storm- Stern tramplers of the billows, fitting sons To you were DRAKE and HAWKINS, and the hearts
That with fierce joy, for God and right, went forth And wrapped the Armada—the Invincible-
In their red wrath, and whelm'd it in the deep. Brother to you was he whom our proud lips Name proudly-BLAKE, who, many a bloody day, Grappled with Dutch VAN TROMP, and thundered down The broadsides of DE RUYTER. Kin to you,
ye old Norse hearts, who dared look on death And greet him loud if victory with him came, Were later glories. From your fierce veins sprang The fiery blood of ROOKE, who gave La Hogue To glory-MONK and SHOVEL-Benbow-Hawke— DUNCAN of Camperdown-HowE-RODNEY-he Who at St. Vincent thunder-calmed the winds- And of him, mightiest, whose fierce voice of war Nile and the Dane heard, crouching-he who gave To us the ocean's rule at Trafalgar.
So triumph grows to triumph. From the fire Of by-gone fames we light the glories up That sun the present. Oh, should danger threat, New vauntings front us, and the shock of war, In the red smoke of battle shall we feel The awful presence of our living dead, Steeling our hearts to conquer. Hellas heard, At Marathon and Salamis heard clear The roar of Ares, and the hero shout Of Ajax pouring flight amid her foe.
The stern dead DOUGLAS won at Otterbourne; SO WELLINGTON our charging ranks shall hurl Through future triumphs; through all coming time Shall foes' masts crash and struck flags flutter down, We conquering in the thought we can but win Whose blood is NELSON'S. Nor is fame alone The bulwark of our greatness. Strong we stand
In surer strength than fates us not to fall;
For we have breathed the breath that knows not death, Hers in whose might we dread not the decay That palsies nations. At the mighty breast Of Freedom were we nurtured. At her knee Have we drunk in the mighty lore that gives To nations immortality and youth
Eternal. To our hands she gave the spell
That masters monarchs. From her lips were caught The charging cheer of Edgehill, and the shout That at red Naseby scattered far her foes. Strong in her strength, we strengthen-conquering And still to conquer, while we do her will. Us does she gift with wisdom. We are wise In Courts and counsels-all that builds up States, And from the clash of thought do we shock out Fit light to walk by-truths, by which we walk More and more wisely; but, O island home Of freemen, thee a future beckons on, Lit with a glory thou hast never known, And great with greatness that for thee shall be. Lo, thou hast walked in sunlight that is night Seen by the radiance of that perfect day. Then shall thy homes know wisdom. Not a hearth But thou shalt ring with knowledge, as a right Dealt to thy children-to thy sons reared up Fitly, self-ruled, to share, ungrudged, thy rule, And walk the ways of greatness, wide to all. Theirs shall be all the victories of peace, The piercing eyes to whose all-fearless gaze Nature gives up her secrets-Art reveals Unrobed her beauties; theirs the ears that hear That voice divine that unto slavish ears
Speaks not that breathing of the airs of heaven
That the high Muse's lips give forth through man. Then, mighty mother, then thy eagle brood, All shalt thou train to front the cloudless sun Of blasting glory with strong eyes that drink Its glare unshrinking, scaling with strong wing Height beyond giddy height of fame's bright air To seats of gods and regions of the stars, Where dwell the immortals wise in rule to man And guidance godlike, there in light to dwell, An awe and gladness to the eyes of earth. O England, might that future now be thine! Then shall the fulness of thy greatness be- In war, in peace, the fulness of thy fame. Then shall a race, how godlike! walk thy ways, Eating of fruit forbidden now-the fruit Of knowledge, making men like unto gods, Knowing of good and evil-good, to embrace- Ill, shun—that earth may liker grow to heaven, That heaven's full blessedness on earth may be, That the all-righteous reign of love may come, Of right and peace, that wrong may be no morc.
So great thou art; so greater shalt thou grow, Doing the will of Him who bade thee be Foremost amongst the nations. Know thou right And do it. Be thy future, as thy past,
Are rule and empire. At His word they rise, They pass. So walk thou, that He be thy staff In this thy journey onward-that thou be The earthly shadow of His power and love, His strength and mercy-that thou lead the earth Unto His altar-steps in whom thou art,
Thy strength and succour-that the nations see
How great are they who surely trust in Him, And know thee for the chosen of thy God.
[By kind permission of the author.]
WHAT THE CHIMNEY SANG.
Over the chimney the night-wind sang
And chanted a melody no one knew;
And the Woman stopped, as her babe she tossed, And thought of the one she had long since lost, And said, as her tear-drops back she forced, "I hate the wind in the chimney."
Over the chimney the night-wind sang
And chanted a melody no one knew;
And the Children said, as they closer drew,
""Tis some witch that is cleaving the black night through,
'Tis a fairy trumpet that just then blew,
And we fear the wind in the chimney."
Over the chimney the night-wind sang
And chanted a melody no one knew; And the Man, as he sat on his hearth below, Said to himself, "It will surely snow,
And fuel is dear, and wages low,
And I'll stop the leak in the chimney."
Over the chimney the night-wind sang And chanted a melody no one knew; But the Poet listened and smiled, for he
Was Man, and Woman, and Child, all three, And he said, "It is God's own harmony,
This wind that sings in the chimney."
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