Poems and Ballads (Third Series) | Page 4

and knows of
thy reign that it wrought not wrong.
VII
Thy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face in the
crown of the steep sky's arch,
And the bold first buds of the whin wax
golden, and witness arise
of the thorn and the larch:
Wild April, enkindled to laughter and
storm by the kiss of the
wildest of winds that blow,
Calls loud on his brother for witness; his
hands that were laden
with blossom are sprinkled with snow,
And his lips breathe winter,
and laugh, and relent; and the live
woods feel not the frost's flame parch;
For the flame of the spring that

consumes not but quickens is felt
at the heart of the forest aglow,
And the sparks that enkindled and fed
it were strewn from the hands
of the gods of the winds of March.
THE COMMONWEAL
1887
I
Eight hundred years and twenty-one
Have shone and sunken since the
land
Whose name is freedom bore such brand
As marks a captive,
and the sun
Beheld her fettered hand.
II
But ere dark time had shed as rain
Or sown on sterile earth as seed

That bears no fruit save tare and weed
An age and half an age again,

She rose on Runnymede.
III
Out of the shadow, starlike still,
She rose up radiant in her right,

And spake, and put to fear and flight
The lawless rule of awless will

That pleads no right save might.
IV
Nor since hath England ever borne
The burden laid on subject lands,

The rule that curbs and binds all hands
Save one, and marks for
servile scorn
The heads it bows and brands.
V

A commonweal arrayed and crowned
With gold and purple, girt with
steel
At need, that foes must fear or feel,
We find her, as our fathers
found,
Earth's lordliest commonweal.
VI
And now that fifty years are flown
Since in a maiden's hand the sign

Of empire that no seas confine
First as a star to seaward shone,

We see their record shine.
VII
A troubled record, foul and fair,
A simple record and serene,

Inscribes for praise a blameless queen,
For praise and blame an age of
care
And change and ends unseen.
VIII
Hope, wide of eye and wild of wing,
Rose with the sundawn of a
reign
Whose grace should make the rough ways plain,
And fill the
worn old world with spring,
And heal its heart of pain.
IX
Peace was to be on earth; men's hope
Was holier than their fathers
had,
Their wisdom not more wise than glad:
They saw the gates of
promise ope,
And heard what love's lips bade.
X
Love armed with knowledge, winged and wise,
Should hush the wind
of war, and see,
They said, the sun of days to be
Bring round
beneath serener skies
A stormless jubilee.
XI

Time, in the darkness unbeholden
That hides him from the sight of
fear
And lets but dreaming hope draw near,
Smiled and was sad to
hear such golden
Strains hail the all-golden year.
XII
Strange clouds have risen between, and wild
Red stars of storm that
lit the abyss
Wherein fierce fraud and violence kiss
And mock such
promise as beguiled
The fiftieth year from this.
XIII
War upon war, change after change,
Hath shaken thrones and towers
to dust,
And hopes austere and faiths august
Have watched in
patience stern and strange
Men's works unjust and just.
XIV
As from some Alpine watch-tower's portal
Night, living yet, looks
forth for dawn,
So from time's mistier mountain lawn
The spirit of
man, in trust immortal,
Yearns toward a hope withdrawn.
XV
The morning comes not, yet the night
Wanes, and men's eyes win
strength to see
Where twilight is, where light shall be
When
conquered wrong and conquering right
Acclaim a world set free.
XVI
Calm as our mother-land, the mother
Of faith and freedom, pure and
wise,
Keeps watch beneath unchangeful skies,
When hath she
watched the woes of other
Strange lands with alien eyes?
XVII

Calm as she stands alone, what nation
Hath lacked an alms from
English hands?
What exiles from what stricken lands
Have lacked
the shelter of the station
Where higher than all she stands?
XVIII
Though time discrown and change dismantle
The pride of thrones
and towers that frown,
How should they bring her glories down--

The sea cast round her like a mantle,
The sea-cloud like a crown?
XIX
The sea, divine as heaven and deathless,
Is hers, and none but only
she
Hath learnt the sea's word, none but we
Her children hear in
heart the breathless
Bright watchword of the sea.
XX
Heard not of others, or misheard
Of many a land for many a year,

The watchword Freedom fails not here
Of hearts that witness if the
word
Find faith in England's ear.
XXI
She, first to love the light, and daughter
Incarnate of the northern
dawn,
She, round whose feet the wild waves fawn
When all their
wrath of warring water
Sounds like a babe's breath drawn,
XXII
How should not she best know, love best,
And best of all souls
understand
The very soul of freedom, scanned
Far off, sought out in
darkling quest
By men at heart unmanned?
XXIII

They climb and fall, ensnared, enshrouded,
By mists of words and
toils they set
To take themselves,