The Visions of England | Page 3

carefully revised and
corrected, and that nineteen pieces published in the original volume of
1881 are not reprinted in the present issue.
F. T. P.
July, 1889
THE VISIONS OF ENGLAND

PRELUDE
CAESAR TO EGBERT
1
England, fair England! Empress isle of isles!
--Round whom the
loving-envious ocean plays,
Girdling thy feet with silver and with
smiles,
Whilst all the nations crowd thy liberal bays;
With rushing
wheel and heart of fire they come,
Or glide and glance like
white-wing'd doves that know
And seek their proper home:--
England! not England yet! but fair as
now,
When first the chalky strand was stirr'd by Roman prow.
2
On thy dear countenance, great mother-land,
Age after age thy sons
have set their sign,
Moulding the features with successive hand
Not
always sedulous of beauty's line:--
Yet here Man's art in one
harmonious aim
With Nature's gentle moulding, oft has work'd
The perfect whole to frame:
Nor does earth's labour'd face elsewhere,
like thee,
Give back her children's heart with such full sympathy
3
--On marshland rough and self-sprung forest gazed
The imperial
Roman of the eagle-eye;
Log-splinter'd forts on green hill-summits
raised,
Earth huts and rings that dot the chalk-downs high:--
Dark
rites of hidden faith in grove and moor;
Idols of monstrous build;
wheel'd scythes of war;
Rock tombs and pillars hoar:
Strange races, Finn, Iberian, Belgae,
Celt;
While in the wolds huge bulls and antler'd giants dwelt.

4
--Another age!--The spell of Rome has past
Transforming all our
Britain; Ruthless plough,
Which plough'd the world, yet o'er the
nations cast
The seed of arts, and law, and all that now
Has ripen'd
into commonwealths:--Her hand
With network mile-paths binding
plain and hill
Arterialized the land:
The thicket yields: the soil for use is clear;

Peace with her plastic touch,--field, farm, and grange are here.
5
Lo, flintwall'd cities, castles stark and square
Bastion'd with rocks
that rival Nature's own;
Red-furnaced baths, trim gardens planted fair

With tree and flower the North ne'er yet had known;
Long
temple-roofs and statues poised on high
With golden wings
outstretch'd for tiptoe flight,
Quivering in summer sky:--
The land had rest, while those stern
legions lay
By northern ramparts camp'd, and held the Pict at bay.
6
Imperious Empire! Thrice-majestic Rome!
No later age, as earth's
slow centuries glide,
Can raze the footprints stamp'd where thou hast
come,
The ne'er-repeated grandeur of thy stride!
--Though now so
dense a darkness takes the land,
Law, peace, wealth, letters, faith,--all
lights are quench'd
By violent heathen hand:--
Vague warrior kings; names writ in fire
and wrong;
Aurelius, Urien, Ida;--shades of ancient song.
7
And Thou--O whether born of flame and wave,
Or Gorlois' son, or

Uther's, blameless lord,
True knight, who died for those thou couldst
not save
When the Round Table brake their plighted word,--
The
lord of song hath set thee in thy grace
And glory, rescued from the
phantom world,
Before us face to face;
No more Avilion bowers the King detain;

The mystic child returns; the Arthur reigns again!
8
--Now, as some cloud that hides a mountain bulk
Thins to white
smoke, and mounts in lighten'd air,
And through the veil the gray
enormous hulk
Burns, and the summit, last, is keen and bare,--

From wasted Britain so the gloaming clears;
Another birth of time
breaks eager out,
And England fair appears:--
Imperial youth sign'd on her golden brow,

While the prophetic eyes with hope and promise glow.
9
Then from the wasted places of the land,
Charr'd skeletons of cities,
circling walls
Of Roman might, and towers that shatter'd stand
Of
that lost world survivors, forth she calls
Her new creation:--O'er the
land is wrought
The happy villagedom by English tribes
From Elbe and Baltic brought;
Red kine light up with life the ravaged
plain;
The forest glooms are pierced; the plough-land laughs again.
10
Each from its little croft the homesteads peep,
Green apple-garths
around, and hedgeless meads,
Smooth-shaven lawns of ever-shifting
sheep,
Wolds where his dappled crew the swineherd feeds:--
Pale
gold round pure pale foreheads, and their eyes
More dewy blue than
speedwell by the brook

When Spring's fresh current flies,
The free fair maids come barefoot
to the fount,
Or poppy-crown'd with fire, the car of harvest mount.
11
On the salt stream that rings us, ness and bay,
The nation's old
sea-soul beats blithe and strong;
The black foam-breasters taste
Biscayan spray,
And where 'neath Polar dawns the narwhals throng:--

Free hands, free hearts, for labour and for glee,
Or village-moot,
when thane with churl unites
Beneath the sacred tree;
While wisdom tempers force, and bravery
leads,
Till spears beat Aye! on shields, and words at once are deeds.
12
Again with life the ruin'd cities smile,
Again from mother-Rome their
sacred fire
Knowledge and Faith rekindle through the isle,
Nigh
quench'd by barbarous war and heathen ire:--
--No more on Balder's
grave let Anglia weep
When winter storms entomb the golden year
Sunk in Adonis-sleep;
Another God has risen, and not in vain!
The
Woden-ash is low, the Cross asserts her reign.
13
--Land of the most law-loving,--the most free!
My dear, dear England!
sweet and green as now
The flower-illumined garden of the sea,

And Nature least impair'd by axe and plough!
A laughing
land!--Thou seest not in the north
How the black Dane and vulture