For all our pomp and pageantry and powers We are but fit to delve the common clay, Seeing this little isle on which we stand, This England, this sea-lion of the sea, By ignorant demagogues is held in fee, Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land Which bare a triple empire in her hand When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!
Poem: Louis NapoleonEagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wings When far away upon a barbarous strand, In fight unequal, by an obscure hand, Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!
Poor boy! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red, Or ride in state through Paris in the van Of thy returning legions, but instead Thy mother France, free and republican,Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place The better laurels of a soldier's crown, That not dishonoured should thy soul go down To tell the mighty Sire of thy raceThat France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty, And found it sweeter than his honied bees, And that the giant wave Democracy Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease.
Poem: On The Massacre Of The Christians In BulgariaChrist, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?
And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones?
For here the air is horrid with men's groans, The priests who call upon Thy name are slain, Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of pain From those whose children lie upon the stones?
Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom Curtains the land, and through the starless night Over Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see!
If Thou in very truth didst burst the tomb Come down, O Son of Man! and show Thy might Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!
Poem: Quantum MutataThere was a time in Europe long ago When no man died for freedom anywhere, But England's lion leaping from its lair Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so While England could a great Republic show.
Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair The Pontiff in his painted portico Trembled before our stern ambassadors.
How comes it then that from such high estate We have thus fallen, save that Luxury With barren merchandise piles up the gate Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by:
Else might we still be Milton's heritors.
Poem: Libertatis Sacra FamesAlbeit nurtured in democracy, And liking best that state republican Where every man is Kinglike and no man Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, Better the rule of One, whom all obey, Than to let clamorous demagogues betray Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.
Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, Or Murder with his silent bloody feet.
Poem: TheoretikosThis mighty empire hath but feet of clay:
Of all its ancient chivalry and might Our little island is forsaken quite:
Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay, And from its hills that voice hath passed away Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it, Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit For this vile traffic-house, where day by day Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart, And the rude people rage with ignorant cries Against an heritage of centuries.
It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art And loftiest culture I would stand apart, Neither for God, nor for his enemies.
Poem: The Garden Of ErosIt is full summer now, the heart of June;Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir Upon the upland meadow where too soon Rich autumn time, the season's usurer, Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees, And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.
Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil, That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on To vex the rose with jealousy, and still The harebell spreads her azure pavilion, And like a strayed and wandering reveller Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June's messengerThe missel-thrush has frighted from the glade, One pale narcissus loiters fearfully Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid Of their own loveliness some violets lie That will not look the gold sun in the face For fear of too much splendour, - ah! methinks it is a placeWhich should be trodden by Persephone When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hidden secret of eternal bliss Known to the Grecian here a man might find, Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.
There are the flowers which mourning Herakles Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine, Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine, That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve, And lilac lady's-smock, - but let them bloom alone, and leaveYon spired hollyhock red-crocketed To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee, Its little bellringer, go seek instead Some other pleasaunce; the anemone That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurlTheir painted wings beside it, - bid it pine In pale virginity; the winter snow Will suit it better than those lips of thine Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone, Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.
