We told dear father all our taleThat night before we went to bed,And at the end his face grew pale,And he bent over us and said(Was it not strange?) he, too, was there,A weary, weary watch to keepBefore the gates of the City of Sleep;But, ere we came, he did not dareEven to dream of entering in,Or even to hope for Peterkin.He was the poor blind man, he said,And we—how low he bent his head!Then he called mother near; and lowHe whispered to us—"Prompt me now;For I forget that song we heard,But you remember every word."Then memory came like a breaking morn,And we breathed it to him—A child was born!And there he drew us to his breastAnd softly murmured all the rest.—The wise men came to greet him with their gifts of myrrh and frankincense,—Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought to make him mirth;And would you know the way to win to little brother Peterkin,My childhood's heart shall guide you through the glories of the earth.Then he looked up and mother kneltBeside us, oh, her eyes were bright;Her arms were like a lovely beltAll round us as we said Good-nightTo father:hewas crying now,But they were happy tears, somehow;For there we saw dear mother layHer cheek against his cheek and say—Hush, let me kiss those tears away.
We told dear father all our taleThat night before we went to bed,And at the end his face grew pale,And he bent over us and said(Was it not strange?) he, too, was there,A weary, weary watch to keepBefore the gates of the City of Sleep;But, ere we came, he did not dareEven to dream of entering in,Or even to hope for Peterkin.He was the poor blind man, he said,And we—how low he bent his head!Then he called mother near; and lowHe whispered to us—"Prompt me now;For I forget that song we heard,But you remember every word."Then memory came like a breaking morn,And we breathed it to him—A child was born!And there he drew us to his breastAnd softly murmured all the rest.—
The wise men came to greet him with their gifts of myrrh and frankincense,—Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought to make him mirth;And would you know the way to win to little brother Peterkin,My childhood's heart shall guide you through the glories of the earth.
Then he looked up and mother kneltBeside us, oh, her eyes were bright;Her arms were like a lovely beltAll round us as we said Good-nightTo father:hewas crying now,But they were happy tears, somehow;For there we saw dear mother layHer cheek against his cheek and say—Hush, let me kiss those tears away.
What can a wanderer bringTo little ones loved like you?You have songs of your own to singThat are far more steadfast and true,Crumbs of pity for birdsThat flit o'er your sun-swept lawn,Songs that are dearer than all our wordsWith a love that is clear as the dawn.What should a dreamer devise,In the depths of his wayward will,To deepen the gleam of your eyesWho can dance with the Sun-child still?Yet you glanced on his lonely way,You cheered him in dream and deed,And his heart is o'erflowing, o'erflowing to-dayWith a love that—you never will need.What can a pilgrim teachTo dwellers in fairy-land?Truth that excels all speechYou murmur and understand!All he can sing you he brings;But—one thing more if he may,One thing more that the King of KingsWill take from the child on the way.Yet how can a child of the nightBrighten the light of the sun?How can he add a delightTo the dances that never are done?Ah, what if he struggles to turnOnce more to the sweet old skiesWith praise and praise, from the fetters that burn,To the God that brightened your eyes?Yes; he is weak, he will fail,Yet, what if, in sorrows apart,One thing, one should avail,The cry of a grateful heart;It has wings: they return through the nightTo a sky where the light lives yet,To the clouds that kneel on his mountain-heightAnd the path that his feet forget.What if he struggles and stillFails and struggles again?What if his broken willWhispers the struggle is vain?Once at least he has risenBecause he remembered your eyes;Once they have brought to his earthly prisonThe passion of Paradise.Kind little eyes that I love,Eyes forgetful of mine,In a dream I am bending aboveYour sleep, and you open and shine;And I know as my own grow blindWith a lonely prayer for your sake,He will hear—even me—little eyes that were kind,God bless you, asleep or awake.
What can a wanderer bringTo little ones loved like you?You have songs of your own to singThat are far more steadfast and true,Crumbs of pity for birdsThat flit o'er your sun-swept lawn,Songs that are dearer than all our wordsWith a love that is clear as the dawn.
What should a dreamer devise,In the depths of his wayward will,To deepen the gleam of your eyesWho can dance with the Sun-child still?Yet you glanced on his lonely way,You cheered him in dream and deed,And his heart is o'erflowing, o'erflowing to-dayWith a love that—you never will need.
What can a pilgrim teachTo dwellers in fairy-land?Truth that excels all speechYou murmur and understand!All he can sing you he brings;But—one thing more if he may,One thing more that the King of KingsWill take from the child on the way.
Yet how can a child of the nightBrighten the light of the sun?How can he add a delightTo the dances that never are done?Ah, what if he struggles to turnOnce more to the sweet old skiesWith praise and praise, from the fetters that burn,To the God that brightened your eyes?
Yes; he is weak, he will fail,Yet, what if, in sorrows apart,One thing, one should avail,The cry of a grateful heart;It has wings: they return through the nightTo a sky where the light lives yet,To the clouds that kneel on his mountain-heightAnd the path that his feet forget.
What if he struggles and stillFails and struggles again?What if his broken willWhispers the struggle is vain?Once at least he has risenBecause he remembered your eyes;Once they have brought to his earthly prisonThe passion of Paradise.
Kind little eyes that I love,Eyes forgetful of mine,In a dream I am bending aboveYour sleep, and you open and shine;And I know as my own grow blindWith a lonely prayer for your sake,He will hear—even me—little eyes that were kind,God bless you, asleep or awake.
"In our lands be Beeres and Lyons of dyvers colours as ye redd, grene, black, and white. And in our land be also unicornes and these Unicornes slee many Lyons.... Also there dare no man make a lye in our lande, for if he dyde he sholde incontynent be sleyn."—Mediæval Epistle, of Pope Prester John.
IAcross the seas of Wonderland to Mogadore we plodded,Forty singing seamen in an old black barque,And we landed in the twilight where a Polyphemus noddedWith his battered moon-eye winking red and yellow through the dark!For his eye was growing mellow,Rich and ripe and red and yellow,As was time, since old Ulysses made him bellow in the dark!Cho.—Since Ulysses bunged his eye up with a pine-torch in the dark!IIWerethey mountains in the gloaming or the giant's ugly shouldersJust beneath the rolling eyeball, with its bleared and vinous glow,Red and yellow o'er the purple of the pines among the bouldersAnd the shaggy horror brooding on the sullen slopes below,Werethey pines among the bouldersOr the hair upon his shoulders?We were only simple seamen, so of course we didn't know.Cho.—We were simple singing seamen, so of course we couldn't know.IIIBut we crossed a plain of poppies, and we came upon a fountainNot of water, but of jewels, like a spray of leaping fire;And behind it, in an emerald glade, beneath a golden mountainThere stood a crystal palace, for a sailor to admire;For a troop of ghosts came round us,Which with leaves of bay they crowned us,Then with grog they well nigh drowned us, to the depth of our desire!Cho.—And 'twas very friendly of them, as a sailor can admire!IVThere was music all about us, we were growing quite forgetfulWe were only singing seamen from the dirt of London-town,Though the nectar that we swallowed seemed to vanish half regretfulAs if we wasn't good enough to take such vittles down,When we saw a sudden figure,Tall and black as any nigger,Like the devil—only bigger—drawing near us with a frown!Cho.—Like the devil—but much bigger—and he wore a golden crown!VAnd "What's all this?" he growls at us! With dignity we chaunted,"Forty singing seamen, sir, as won't be put upon!""What? Englishmen?" he cries, "Well, if ye don't mind being haunted,Faith you're welcome to my palace; I'm the famous Prester John!Will ye walk into my palace?I don't bear 'ee any malice!One and all ye shall be welcome in the halls of Prester John!"Cho.—So we walked into the palace and the halls of Prester John!VINow the door was one great diamond and the hall a hollow ruby—Big as Beachy Head, my lads, nay bigger by a half!And I sees the mate wi' mouth agape, a-staring like a booby,And the skipper close behind him, with his tongue out like a calf!Now the way to take it rightlyWas to walk along politelyJust as if you didn't notice—so I couldn't help but laugh!Cho.—For they both forgot their manners and the crew was bound to laugh!VIIBut he took us through his palace and, my lads, as I'm a sinner,We walked into an opal like a sunset-coloured cloud—"My dining-room," he says, and, quick as light we saw a dinnerSpread before us by the fingers of a hidden fairy crowd;And the skipper, swaying gentlyAfter dinner, murmurs faintly,"I looks to-wards you, Prester John, you've done us very proud!"Cho.—And we drank his health with honours, for hedoneusveryproud!VIIIThen he walks us to his garden where we sees a feathered demonVery splendid and important on a sort of spicy tree!"That's the Phœnix," whispers Prester, "which all eddicated seamenKnows the only one existent, andhe'swaiting for to flee!When his hundred years expireThen he'll set hisself a-fireAnd another from his ashes rise most beautiful to see!"Cho.—With wings of rose and emerald most beautiful to see!IXThen he says, "In younder forest there's a little silver river,And whosoever drinks of it, his youth shall never die!The centuries go by, but Prester John endures for everWith his music in the mountains and his magic on the sky!Whileyourhearts are growing colder,While your world is growing older,There's a magic in the distance, where the sea-line meets the sky,"Cho.—It shall call to singing seamen till the fount o' song is dry!XSo we thought we'd up and seek it, but that forest fair defied us,—First a crimson leopard laughs at us most horrible to see,Then a sea-green lion came and sniffed and licked his chops and eyed us,While a red and yellow unicorn was dancing round a tree!Wewas trying to look thinner,Which was hard, because our dinnerMust ha' made us very tempting to a cat o' high degree!Cho.—Must ha' made us very tempting to the whole menarjeree!XISo we scuttled from that forest and across the poppy meadowsWhere the awful shaggy horror brooded o'er us in the dark!And we pushes out from shore again a-jumping at our shadows,And pulls away most joyful to the old black barque!And home again we ploddedWhile the Polyphemus noddedWith his battered moon-eye winking red and yellow through the dark.Cho.—Oh, the moon above the mountains, red and yellow through the dark!XIIAcross the seas of Wonderland to London-town we blundered,Forty singing seamen as was puzzled for to knowIf the visions that we saw was caused by—here again we pondered—A tipple in a vision forty thousand years ago.Could the grog wedreamtwe swallowedMake usdreamof all that followed?We were only simple seamen, so of course we didn't know!Cho.—We were simple singing seamen, so of course we could not know!
I
Across the seas of Wonderland to Mogadore we plodded,Forty singing seamen in an old black barque,And we landed in the twilight where a Polyphemus noddedWith his battered moon-eye winking red and yellow through the dark!For his eye was growing mellow,Rich and ripe and red and yellow,As was time, since old Ulysses made him bellow in the dark!Cho.—Since Ulysses bunged his eye up with a pine-torch in the dark!
II
Werethey mountains in the gloaming or the giant's ugly shouldersJust beneath the rolling eyeball, with its bleared and vinous glow,Red and yellow o'er the purple of the pines among the bouldersAnd the shaggy horror brooding on the sullen slopes below,Werethey pines among the bouldersOr the hair upon his shoulders?We were only simple seamen, so of course we didn't know.Cho.—We were simple singing seamen, so of course we couldn't know.
III
But we crossed a plain of poppies, and we came upon a fountainNot of water, but of jewels, like a spray of leaping fire;And behind it, in an emerald glade, beneath a golden mountainThere stood a crystal palace, for a sailor to admire;For a troop of ghosts came round us,Which with leaves of bay they crowned us,Then with grog they well nigh drowned us, to the depth of our desire!Cho.—And 'twas very friendly of them, as a sailor can admire!
IV
There was music all about us, we were growing quite forgetfulWe were only singing seamen from the dirt of London-town,Though the nectar that we swallowed seemed to vanish half regretfulAs if we wasn't good enough to take such vittles down,When we saw a sudden figure,Tall and black as any nigger,Like the devil—only bigger—drawing near us with a frown!Cho.—Like the devil—but much bigger—and he wore a golden crown!
V
And "What's all this?" he growls at us! With dignity we chaunted,"Forty singing seamen, sir, as won't be put upon!""What? Englishmen?" he cries, "Well, if ye don't mind being haunted,Faith you're welcome to my palace; I'm the famous Prester John!Will ye walk into my palace?I don't bear 'ee any malice!One and all ye shall be welcome in the halls of Prester John!"Cho.—So we walked into the palace and the halls of Prester John!
VI
Now the door was one great diamond and the hall a hollow ruby—Big as Beachy Head, my lads, nay bigger by a half!And I sees the mate wi' mouth agape, a-staring like a booby,And the skipper close behind him, with his tongue out like a calf!Now the way to take it rightlyWas to walk along politelyJust as if you didn't notice—so I couldn't help but laugh!Cho.—For they both forgot their manners and the crew was bound to laugh!
VII
But he took us through his palace and, my lads, as I'm a sinner,We walked into an opal like a sunset-coloured cloud—"My dining-room," he says, and, quick as light we saw a dinnerSpread before us by the fingers of a hidden fairy crowd;And the skipper, swaying gentlyAfter dinner, murmurs faintly,"I looks to-wards you, Prester John, you've done us very proud!"Cho.—And we drank his health with honours, for hedoneusveryproud!
VIII
Then he walks us to his garden where we sees a feathered demonVery splendid and important on a sort of spicy tree!"That's the Phœnix," whispers Prester, "which all eddicated seamenKnows the only one existent, andhe'swaiting for to flee!When his hundred years expireThen he'll set hisself a-fireAnd another from his ashes rise most beautiful to see!"Cho.—With wings of rose and emerald most beautiful to see!
IX
Then he says, "In younder forest there's a little silver river,And whosoever drinks of it, his youth shall never die!The centuries go by, but Prester John endures for everWith his music in the mountains and his magic on the sky!Whileyourhearts are growing colder,While your world is growing older,There's a magic in the distance, where the sea-line meets the sky,"Cho.—It shall call to singing seamen till the fount o' song is dry!
X
So we thought we'd up and seek it, but that forest fair defied us,—First a crimson leopard laughs at us most horrible to see,Then a sea-green lion came and sniffed and licked his chops and eyed us,While a red and yellow unicorn was dancing round a tree!Wewas trying to look thinner,Which was hard, because our dinnerMust ha' made us very tempting to a cat o' high degree!Cho.—Must ha' made us very tempting to the whole menarjeree!
XI
So we scuttled from that forest and across the poppy meadowsWhere the awful shaggy horror brooded o'er us in the dark!And we pushes out from shore again a-jumping at our shadows,And pulls away most joyful to the old black barque!And home again we ploddedWhile the Polyphemus noddedWith his battered moon-eye winking red and yellow through the dark.Cho.—Oh, the moon above the mountains, red and yellow through the dark!
XII
Across the seas of Wonderland to London-town we blundered,Forty singing seamen as was puzzled for to knowIf the visions that we saw was caused by—here again we pondered—A tipple in a vision forty thousand years ago.Could the grog wedreamtwe swallowedMake usdreamof all that followed?We were only simple seamen, so of course we didn't know!Cho.—We were simple singing seamen, so of course we could not know!
Who are the Empire-builders? TheyWhose desperate arrogance demandsA self-reflecting power to swayA hundred little selfless lands?Lord God of battles, ere we bowTo these and to their soulless lust,Let fall Thy thunders on us nowAnd strike us equal to the dust.Before the stars in heaven were madeOur great Commander led us forth;And now the embattled lines are laidTo East, to West, to South, to North;According as of old He plannedWe take our station in the field,Nor dare to dream we understandThe splendour of the swords we wield.We know not what the Soul intendsThat lives and moves behind our deeds;We wheel and march to glorious endsBeyond the common soldier's needs:And some are raised to high rewards,And some by regiments are hurledTo die upon the opposing swordsAnd sleep—forgotten by the world.And not where navies churn the foam,Nor called to fields of fierce emprize,In many a country cottage-homeThe Empire-builder lives and dies:Or through the roaring streets he goesA lean and weary City slave,The conqueror of a thousand foesWho walks, unheeded, to his grave.Leaders unknown of hopes forlornGo past us in the daily mart,With many a shadowy crown of thornAnd many a kingly broken heart:Though England's banner overheadEver the secret signal flew,We only see its Cross is redAs children see the skies are blue.For all are Empire-builders here,Whose hearts are true to heaven and homeAnd, year by slow revolving year,Fulfil the duties as they come;So simple seems the task, and yetMany for this are crucified;Ay, and their brother-men forgetThe simple wounds in palm and side.But he that to his home is true,Where'er the tides of power may flow,Has built a kingdom great and newWhich Time nor Fate shall overthrowThese are the Empire-builders, theseAnnex where none shall say them nayBeyond the world's uncharted seasRealms that can never pass away.
Who are the Empire-builders? TheyWhose desperate arrogance demandsA self-reflecting power to swayA hundred little selfless lands?Lord God of battles, ere we bowTo these and to their soulless lust,Let fall Thy thunders on us nowAnd strike us equal to the dust.
Before the stars in heaven were madeOur great Commander led us forth;And now the embattled lines are laidTo East, to West, to South, to North;According as of old He plannedWe take our station in the field,Nor dare to dream we understandThe splendour of the swords we wield.
We know not what the Soul intendsThat lives and moves behind our deeds;We wheel and march to glorious endsBeyond the common soldier's needs:And some are raised to high rewards,And some by regiments are hurledTo die upon the opposing swordsAnd sleep—forgotten by the world.
And not where navies churn the foam,Nor called to fields of fierce emprize,In many a country cottage-homeThe Empire-builder lives and dies:Or through the roaring streets he goesA lean and weary City slave,The conqueror of a thousand foesWho walks, unheeded, to his grave.
Leaders unknown of hopes forlornGo past us in the daily mart,With many a shadowy crown of thornAnd many a kingly broken heart:Though England's banner overheadEver the secret signal flew,We only see its Cross is redAs children see the skies are blue.
For all are Empire-builders here,Whose hearts are true to heaven and homeAnd, year by slow revolving year,Fulfil the duties as they come;So simple seems the task, and yetMany for this are crucified;Ay, and their brother-men forgetThe simple wounds in palm and side.
But he that to his home is true,Where'er the tides of power may flow,Has built a kingdom great and newWhich Time nor Fate shall overthrowThese are the Empire-builders, theseAnnex where none shall say them nayBeyond the world's uncharted seasRealms that can never pass away.
I"Hasten the Kingdom, England!"This year, a hundred years ago,The world attended, breathless, on the gathering pomp of war,While England and her deathless dead, with all their mighty hearts aglow,Swept onward like the dawn of doom to triumph at Trafalgar;Then the world was hushed to wonderAs the cannon's dying thunderBroke out again in muffled peals across the heaving sea,And home the Victor came at last,Home, home, with England's flag half-mast,That never dipped to foe before, on Nelson's Victory.IIGod gave this year to England;And what He gives He takes again;He gives us life, He gives us death: our victories have wings;He gives us love and in its heart He hides the whole world's heart of pain:We gain by loss: impartially the eternal balance swings!Ay; in the fire we cherishOur thoughts and dreams may perish;Yet shall it burn for England's sake triumphant as of old!What sacrifice could gain for herOur own shall still maintain for her,And hold the gates of Freedom wide that take no keys of gold.IIIGod gave this year to England;Her eyes are far too bright for tearsOf sorrow; by her silent dead she kneels, too proud for pride;Their blood, their love, have bought her right to claim the new imperial yearsIn England's name for Freedom, in whose love her children died;In whose love, though hope may dwindle,Love and brotherhood shall kindleBetween the striving nations as a choral song takes fire,Till new hope, new faith, new wonderCleave the clouds of doubt asunder,And speed the union of mankind in one divine desire.IVHasten the Kingdom, England;This year across the listening worldThere came a sound of mingled tears where victory and defeatClasped hands; and Peace—among the dead—stood wistfully, with white wings furled,Knowing the strife was idle; for the night and morning meet,Yet there is no disunionIn heaven's divine communionAs through the gates of twilight the harmonious morning pours;Ah, God speed that grander morrowWhen the world's divinest sorrowShall show how Love stands knocking at the world's unopened doors.VHasten the Kingdom, England;Look up across the narrow seas,Across the great white nations to thy dark imperial throneWhere now three hundred million souls attend on thine august decrees;Ah, bow thine head in humbleness, the Kingdom is thine own:Not for the pride or powerGod gave thee this in dower;But, now the West and East have met and wept their mortal loss,Now that their tears have spokenAnd the long dumb spell is broken,Is it nothing that thy banner bears the red eternal cross?VIAy! Lift the flag of England;And lo, that Eastern cross is there,Veiled with a hundred meanings as our English eyes are veiled;Yet to the grander dawn we move oblivious of the sign we bear,Oblivious of the heights we climb until the last be scaled;Then with all the earth before usAnd the great cross floating o'er usWe shall break the sword we forged of old, so weak we were and blind;While the inviolate heaven disclosesEngland's Rose of all the rosesDawning wide and ever wider o'er the kingdom of mankind.VIIHasten the Kingdom, England;For then all nations shall be one;One as the ordered stars are one that sing upon their way,One with the rhythmic glories of the swinging sea and the rolling sun,One with the flow of life and death, the tides of night and day;One with all dreams of beauty,One with all laws of duty;One with the weak and helpless while the one sky burns above;Till eyes by tears made gloriousLook up at last victorious,And lips that starved break open in one song of life and love.VIIIHasten the Kingdom, England;And when the Spring returns againRekindle in our English hearts the universal Spring,That we may wait in faith upon the former and the latter rain,Till all waste places burgeon and the wildernesses sing;Pour the glory of thy pityThrough the dark and troubled city;Pour the splendour of thy beauty over wood and meadow fair;May the God of battles guide theeAnd the Christ-child walk beside theeWith a word of peace for England in the dawn of Nelson's Year.
I
"Hasten the Kingdom, England!"This year, a hundred years ago,The world attended, breathless, on the gathering pomp of war,While England and her deathless dead, with all their mighty hearts aglow,Swept onward like the dawn of doom to triumph at Trafalgar;Then the world was hushed to wonderAs the cannon's dying thunderBroke out again in muffled peals across the heaving sea,And home the Victor came at last,Home, home, with England's flag half-mast,That never dipped to foe before, on Nelson's Victory.
II
God gave this year to England;And what He gives He takes again;He gives us life, He gives us death: our victories have wings;He gives us love and in its heart He hides the whole world's heart of pain:We gain by loss: impartially the eternal balance swings!Ay; in the fire we cherishOur thoughts and dreams may perish;Yet shall it burn for England's sake triumphant as of old!What sacrifice could gain for herOur own shall still maintain for her,And hold the gates of Freedom wide that take no keys of gold.
III
God gave this year to England;Her eyes are far too bright for tearsOf sorrow; by her silent dead she kneels, too proud for pride;Their blood, their love, have bought her right to claim the new imperial yearsIn England's name for Freedom, in whose love her children died;In whose love, though hope may dwindle,Love and brotherhood shall kindleBetween the striving nations as a choral song takes fire,Till new hope, new faith, new wonderCleave the clouds of doubt asunder,And speed the union of mankind in one divine desire.
IV
Hasten the Kingdom, England;This year across the listening worldThere came a sound of mingled tears where victory and defeatClasped hands; and Peace—among the dead—stood wistfully, with white wings furled,Knowing the strife was idle; for the night and morning meet,Yet there is no disunionIn heaven's divine communionAs through the gates of twilight the harmonious morning pours;Ah, God speed that grander morrowWhen the world's divinest sorrowShall show how Love stands knocking at the world's unopened doors.
V
Hasten the Kingdom, England;Look up across the narrow seas,Across the great white nations to thy dark imperial throneWhere now three hundred million souls attend on thine august decrees;Ah, bow thine head in humbleness, the Kingdom is thine own:Not for the pride or powerGod gave thee this in dower;But, now the West and East have met and wept their mortal loss,Now that their tears have spokenAnd the long dumb spell is broken,Is it nothing that thy banner bears the red eternal cross?
VI
Ay! Lift the flag of England;And lo, that Eastern cross is there,Veiled with a hundred meanings as our English eyes are veiled;Yet to the grander dawn we move oblivious of the sign we bear,Oblivious of the heights we climb until the last be scaled;Then with all the earth before usAnd the great cross floating o'er usWe shall break the sword we forged of old, so weak we were and blind;While the inviolate heaven disclosesEngland's Rose of all the rosesDawning wide and ever wider o'er the kingdom of mankind.
VII
Hasten the Kingdom, England;For then all nations shall be one;One as the ordered stars are one that sing upon their way,One with the rhythmic glories of the swinging sea and the rolling sun,One with the flow of life and death, the tides of night and day;One with all dreams of beauty,One with all laws of duty;One with the weak and helpless while the one sky burns above;Till eyes by tears made gloriousLook up at last victorious,And lips that starved break open in one song of life and love.
VIII
Hasten the Kingdom, England;And when the Spring returns againRekindle in our English hearts the universal Spring,That we may wait in faith upon the former and the latter rain,Till all waste places burgeon and the wildernesses sing;Pour the glory of thy pityThrough the dark and troubled city;Pour the splendour of thy beauty over wood and meadow fair;May the God of battles guide theeAnd the Christ-child walk beside theeWith a word of peace for England in the dawn of Nelson's Year.
ITo-night o'er Bagshot heath the purple heatherRolls like dumb thunder to the splendid West;And mighty ragged clouds are massed togetherAbove the scarred old common's broken breast;And there are hints of blood between the boulders,Red glints of fiercer blossom, bright and bold;And round the shaggy mounds and sullen shouldersThe gorse repays the sun with savage gold.And now, as in the West the light grows holy,And all the hollows of the heath grow dim,Far off, a sulky rumble rolls up slowlyWhere guns at practice growl their evening hymn.And here and there in bare clean yellow spacesThe print of horse-hoofs like an answering cryStrikes strangely on the sense from lonely placesWhere there is nought but empty heath and sky.The print of warlike hoofs, where now no figureOf horse or man along the sky's red rimBreaks on the low horizon's rough black rigourTo make the gorgeous waste less wild and grim;Strangely the hoof-prints strike, a Crusoe's wonder,Framed with sharp furze amongst the footless fells,A menace and a mystery, rapt asunder,As if the whole wide world contained nought else,—Nought but the grand despair of desolationBetween us and that wild, how far, how near,Where, clothed with thunder, nation grapples nation,And Slaughter grips the clay-cold hand of Fear.IIAnd far above the purple heath the sunset stars awaken,And ghostly hosts of cloud across the West begin to stream,And all the low soft winds with muffled cannonades are shaken,And all the blood-red blossom draws aloof into a dream;A dream—no more—and round the dream the clouds are curled together;A dream of two great stormy hosts embattled in the sky;For there against the low red heavens each sombre ridge of heatherUp-heaves a hedge of bayonets around a battle-cry;Melts in the distant battle-field or brings the dream so near itThat, almost, as the rifted clouds around them swim and reel,A thousand grey-lipped faces flash—ah, hark, the heart can hear it—The sharp command that lifts as one the levelled lines of steel.And through the purple thunders there are silent shadows creepingWith murderous gleams of light, and then—a mighty leaping roarWhere foe and foe are met; and then—a long low sound of weepingAs Death laughs out from sea to sea, another fight is o'er.Another fight—but ah, how much is over? Night descendingDraws o'er the scene her ghastly moon-shot veil with piteous hands;But all around the bivouac-glare the shadowy pickets wendingSee sights, hear sounds that only war's own madness understands.No circle of the accursed dead where dreaming Dante wandered,No city of death's eternal dole could match this mortal worldWhere men, before the living soul and quivering flesh are sundered,Through all the bestial shapes of pain to one wide grave are hurled.But in the midst for those who dare beyond the fringe to enterBe sure one kingly figure lies with pale and blood-soiled face,And round his brows a ragged crown of thorns; and in the centreOf those pale folded hands and feet the sigil of his grace.See, how the pale limbs, marred and scarred in love's lost battle, languish;See how the splendid passion still smiles quietly from his eyes:Come, come and see a king indeed, who triumphs in his anguish,Who conquers here in utter loss beneath the eternal skies.For unto lips so deadly calm what answer shall be given?Oh pale, pale king so deadly still beneath the unshaken stars,Who shall deny thy kingdom here, though heaven and earth were riven,With the last roar of onset in the world's intestine wars?The laugh is Death's; he laughs as erst o'er hours that England cherished,"Count up, count up the stricken homes that wail the first-born son,Count by your starved and fatherless the tale of what hath perished;Then gather with your foes and ask if you—or I—have won."IIIThe world rolls on; and love and peace are mated:Still on the breast of England, like a star,The blood-red lonely heath blows, consecrated,A brooding practice-ground for blood-red war.Yet is there nothing out of tune with NatureThere, where the skylark showers his earliest song,Where sun and wind have moulded every feature,And one world-music bears each note along.There many a brown-winged kestrel swoops or hoversIn poised and patient quest of his own prey;And there are fern-clad glens where happy loversMay kiss the murmuring summer noon away.There, as the primal earth was—all is gloriousPerfect and wise and wonderful in viewOf that great heaven through which we rise victoriousO'er all that strife and change and death can do.No nation yet has risen o'er earth's first nature;Though love illumed each individual mind,Like some half-blind, half-formed primeval creatureThe State still crawled a thousand years behind.Still on the standards of the great World-PowersLion and bear and eagle sullenly brood,Whether the slow folds flap o'er halcyon hoursOr stream tempestuously o'er fields of blood.By war's red evolution we have risenFar, since fierce Erda chose her conquering few,And out of Death's red gates and Time's grey prisonThey burst, elect from battle, tried and true.But now Death mocks at youth and love and glory,Chivalry slinks behind his loaded mines,With meaner murderous lips War tells her story,And round her cunning brows no laurel shines.And here to us the eternal charge is givenTo rise and make our low world touch God's high:To hasten God's own kingdom, Man's own heaven,And teach Love's grander army how to die.No kingdom then, no long-continuing cityShall e'er again be stablished by the sword;No blood-bought throne defy the powers of pity,No despot's crown outweigh one helot's word.Imperial England, breathe thy marching orders:The great host waits; the end, the end is close,When earth shall know thy peace in all her borders,And all her deserts blossom with thy Rose.Princedoms and peoples rise and flash and perishAs the dew passes from the flowering thorn;Yet the one Kingdom that our dreams still cherishLives in a light that blinds the world's red morn.Hasten the Kingdom, England, the days darken;We would not have thee slacken watch or ward,Nor doff thine armour till the whole world hearken,Nor till Time bid thee lay aside the sword.Hasten the Kingdom; hamlet, heath, and city,We are all at war, one bleeding bulk of pain;Little we know; but one thing—by God's pity—We know, and know all else on earth is vain.We know not yet how much we dare, how little;We dare not dream of peace; yet, as at need,England, God help thee, let no jot or tittleOf Love's last law go past thee without heed.Who saves his life shall lose it!The great agesBear witness—Rome and Babylon and TyreCry from the dust-stopped lips of all their sages,—There is no hope if man can climb no higher.England, by God's grace set apart to ponderA little while from battle, ah, take heed,Keep watch, keep watch, beside thy sleeping thunder;Call down Christ's pity while those others bleed;Waken the God within thee, while the sorrowOf battle surges round a distant shore,While Time is thine, lest on some deadly morrowThe moving finger write—but thine no more.Little we know—but though the advancing æonsWin every painful step by blood and fire,Though tortured mouths must chant the world's great pæans,And martyred souls proclaim the world's desire;Though war be nature's engine of rejection,Soon, soon, across her universal vergeThe soul of man in sacred insurrectionShall into God's diviner light emerge.Hasten the Kingdom, England, queen and mother;Little we know of all Time's works and ways;Yet this, this, this is sure: we need none otherKnowledge or wisdom, hope or aim or praise,But to keep this one stormy banner flyingIn this one faith that none shall e'er disprove,Then drive the embattled world before thee, crying,There is one Emperor, whose name is Love.
I
To-night o'er Bagshot heath the purple heatherRolls like dumb thunder to the splendid West;And mighty ragged clouds are massed togetherAbove the scarred old common's broken breast;And there are hints of blood between the boulders,Red glints of fiercer blossom, bright and bold;And round the shaggy mounds and sullen shouldersThe gorse repays the sun with savage gold.
And now, as in the West the light grows holy,And all the hollows of the heath grow dim,Far off, a sulky rumble rolls up slowlyWhere guns at practice growl their evening hymn.
And here and there in bare clean yellow spacesThe print of horse-hoofs like an answering cryStrikes strangely on the sense from lonely placesWhere there is nought but empty heath and sky.
The print of warlike hoofs, where now no figureOf horse or man along the sky's red rimBreaks on the low horizon's rough black rigourTo make the gorgeous waste less wild and grim;
Strangely the hoof-prints strike, a Crusoe's wonder,Framed with sharp furze amongst the footless fells,A menace and a mystery, rapt asunder,As if the whole wide world contained nought else,—
Nought but the grand despair of desolationBetween us and that wild, how far, how near,Where, clothed with thunder, nation grapples nation,And Slaughter grips the clay-cold hand of Fear.
II
And far above the purple heath the sunset stars awaken,And ghostly hosts of cloud across the West begin to stream,And all the low soft winds with muffled cannonades are shaken,And all the blood-red blossom draws aloof into a dream;A dream—no more—and round the dream the clouds are curled together;A dream of two great stormy hosts embattled in the sky;For there against the low red heavens each sombre ridge of heatherUp-heaves a hedge of bayonets around a battle-cry;
Melts in the distant battle-field or brings the dream so near itThat, almost, as the rifted clouds around them swim and reel,A thousand grey-lipped faces flash—ah, hark, the heart can hear it—The sharp command that lifts as one the levelled lines of steel.
And through the purple thunders there are silent shadows creepingWith murderous gleams of light, and then—a mighty leaping roarWhere foe and foe are met; and then—a long low sound of weepingAs Death laughs out from sea to sea, another fight is o'er.
Another fight—but ah, how much is over? Night descendingDraws o'er the scene her ghastly moon-shot veil with piteous hands;But all around the bivouac-glare the shadowy pickets wendingSee sights, hear sounds that only war's own madness understands.
No circle of the accursed dead where dreaming Dante wandered,No city of death's eternal dole could match this mortal worldWhere men, before the living soul and quivering flesh are sundered,Through all the bestial shapes of pain to one wide grave are hurled.
But in the midst for those who dare beyond the fringe to enterBe sure one kingly figure lies with pale and blood-soiled face,And round his brows a ragged crown of thorns; and in the centreOf those pale folded hands and feet the sigil of his grace.
See, how the pale limbs, marred and scarred in love's lost battle, languish;See how the splendid passion still smiles quietly from his eyes:Come, come and see a king indeed, who triumphs in his anguish,Who conquers here in utter loss beneath the eternal skies.
For unto lips so deadly calm what answer shall be given?Oh pale, pale king so deadly still beneath the unshaken stars,Who shall deny thy kingdom here, though heaven and earth were riven,With the last roar of onset in the world's intestine wars?
The laugh is Death's; he laughs as erst o'er hours that England cherished,"Count up, count up the stricken homes that wail the first-born son,Count by your starved and fatherless the tale of what hath perished;Then gather with your foes and ask if you—or I—have won."
III
The world rolls on; and love and peace are mated:Still on the breast of England, like a star,The blood-red lonely heath blows, consecrated,A brooding practice-ground for blood-red war.
Yet is there nothing out of tune with NatureThere, where the skylark showers his earliest song,Where sun and wind have moulded every feature,And one world-music bears each note along.
There many a brown-winged kestrel swoops or hoversIn poised and patient quest of his own prey;And there are fern-clad glens where happy loversMay kiss the murmuring summer noon away.
There, as the primal earth was—all is gloriousPerfect and wise and wonderful in viewOf that great heaven through which we rise victoriousO'er all that strife and change and death can do.
No nation yet has risen o'er earth's first nature;Though love illumed each individual mind,Like some half-blind, half-formed primeval creatureThe State still crawled a thousand years behind.
Still on the standards of the great World-PowersLion and bear and eagle sullenly brood,Whether the slow folds flap o'er halcyon hoursOr stream tempestuously o'er fields of blood.
By war's red evolution we have risenFar, since fierce Erda chose her conquering few,And out of Death's red gates and Time's grey prisonThey burst, elect from battle, tried and true.
But now Death mocks at youth and love and glory,Chivalry slinks behind his loaded mines,With meaner murderous lips War tells her story,And round her cunning brows no laurel shines.
And here to us the eternal charge is givenTo rise and make our low world touch God's high:To hasten God's own kingdom, Man's own heaven,And teach Love's grander army how to die.
No kingdom then, no long-continuing cityShall e'er again be stablished by the sword;No blood-bought throne defy the powers of pity,No despot's crown outweigh one helot's word.
Imperial England, breathe thy marching orders:The great host waits; the end, the end is close,When earth shall know thy peace in all her borders,And all her deserts blossom with thy Rose.
Princedoms and peoples rise and flash and perishAs the dew passes from the flowering thorn;Yet the one Kingdom that our dreams still cherishLives in a light that blinds the world's red morn.
Hasten the Kingdom, England, the days darken;We would not have thee slacken watch or ward,Nor doff thine armour till the whole world hearken,Nor till Time bid thee lay aside the sword.
Hasten the Kingdom; hamlet, heath, and city,We are all at war, one bleeding bulk of pain;Little we know; but one thing—by God's pity—We know, and know all else on earth is vain.
We know not yet how much we dare, how little;We dare not dream of peace; yet, as at need,England, God help thee, let no jot or tittleOf Love's last law go past thee without heed.
Who saves his life shall lose it!The great agesBear witness—Rome and Babylon and TyreCry from the dust-stopped lips of all their sages,—There is no hope if man can climb no higher.
England, by God's grace set apart to ponderA little while from battle, ah, take heed,Keep watch, keep watch, beside thy sleeping thunder;Call down Christ's pity while those others bleed;
Waken the God within thee, while the sorrowOf battle surges round a distant shore,While Time is thine, lest on some deadly morrowThe moving finger write—but thine no more.
Little we know—but though the advancing æonsWin every painful step by blood and fire,Though tortured mouths must chant the world's great pæans,And martyred souls proclaim the world's desire;
Though war be nature's engine of rejection,Soon, soon, across her universal vergeThe soul of man in sacred insurrectionShall into God's diviner light emerge.
Hasten the Kingdom, England, queen and mother;Little we know of all Time's works and ways;Yet this, this, this is sure: we need none otherKnowledge or wisdom, hope or aim or praise,
But to keep this one stormy banner flyingIn this one faith that none shall e'er disprove,Then drive the embattled world before thee, crying,There is one Emperor, whose name is Love.
IHe needs no crown of ours, whose golden heartPoured out its wealth so freely in pure praiseOf others: him the imperishable baysCrown, and on Sunium's height he sits apart:He hears immortal greetings this great morn:Fain would we bring, we also, all we may,Some wayside flower of transitory bloom,Frail tribute, only bornTo greet the gladness of this April dayThen waste on death's dark wind its faint perfume.IIHere on this April day the whole sweet SpringSpeaks thro' his music only, or seems to speak.And we that hear, with hearts uplift and weak,What can we more than claim him for our king?Here on this April day (and many a timeShall April come and find him singing still)He is one with the world's great heart beyond the years,One with the pulsing rhymeOf tides that work some heavenly rhythmic willAnd hold the secret of all human tears.IIIFor he, the last of that immortal raceWhose music, like a robe of living lightRe-clothed each new-born age and made it brightAs with the glory of Love's transfiguring face,Reddened earth's roses, kindled the deep blueOf England's radiant, ever-singing sea,Recalled the white Thalassian from the foam.Woke the dim stars anewAnd triumphed in the triumph of Liberty,We claim him; but he hath not here his home.IVNot here; round him to-day the clouds divide:We know what faces thro' that rose-flushed airNow bend above him: Shelley's face is there,And Hugo's, lit with more than kingly pride.Replenished there with splendour, the blind eyesOf Milton bend from heaven to meet his own,Sappho is there, crowned with those queenlier flowersWhose graft outgrew our skies,His gift: Shakespeare leans earthward from his throneWith hands outstretched. He needs no crown of ours.
I
He needs no crown of ours, whose golden heartPoured out its wealth so freely in pure praiseOf others: him the imperishable baysCrown, and on Sunium's height he sits apart:He hears immortal greetings this great morn:Fain would we bring, we also, all we may,Some wayside flower of transitory bloom,Frail tribute, only bornTo greet the gladness of this April dayThen waste on death's dark wind its faint perfume.
II
Here on this April day the whole sweet SpringSpeaks thro' his music only, or seems to speak.And we that hear, with hearts uplift and weak,What can we more than claim him for our king?Here on this April day (and many a timeShall April come and find him singing still)He is one with the world's great heart beyond the years,One with the pulsing rhymeOf tides that work some heavenly rhythmic willAnd hold the secret of all human tears.
III
For he, the last of that immortal raceWhose music, like a robe of living lightRe-clothed each new-born age and made it brightAs with the glory of Love's transfiguring face,Reddened earth's roses, kindled the deep blueOf England's radiant, ever-singing sea,Recalled the white Thalassian from the foam.Woke the dim stars anewAnd triumphed in the triumph of Liberty,We claim him; but he hath not here his home.
IV
Not here; round him to-day the clouds divide:We know what faces thro' that rose-flushed airNow bend above him: Shelley's face is there,And Hugo's, lit with more than kingly pride.Replenished there with splendour, the blind eyesOf Milton bend from heaven to meet his own,Sappho is there, crowned with those queenlier flowersWhose graft outgrew our skies,His gift: Shakespeare leans earthward from his throneWith hands outstretched. He needs no crown of ours.
ILove's a pilgrim, cloaked in grey,And his feet are pierced and bleeding:Have ye seen him pass this waySorrowfully pleading?Ye that weep the world away,Have ye seen King Love to-day?—IIYea, we saw him; but he camePoppy-crowned and white of limb!Song had touched his lips with flame,And his eyes were drowsed and dim;And we kissed the hours awayTill night grew rosier than the day.—IIIHath he left you?—Yea, he left usA little while ago,Of his laughter quite bereft usAnd his limbs of snow;We know not why he went awayWho ruled our revels yesterday.—IVBecause ye did not understandLove cometh from afar,A pilgrim out of Holy LandGuided by a star:Last night he came in cloak of grey,Begging. Ye knew him not: he went his way.
I
Love's a pilgrim, cloaked in grey,And his feet are pierced and bleeding:Have ye seen him pass this waySorrowfully pleading?Ye that weep the world away,Have ye seen King Love to-day?—
II
Yea, we saw him; but he camePoppy-crowned and white of limb!Song had touched his lips with flame,And his eyes were drowsed and dim;And we kissed the hours awayTill night grew rosier than the day.—
III
Hath he left you?—Yea, he left usA little while ago,Of his laughter quite bereft usAnd his limbs of snow;We know not why he went awayWho ruled our revels yesterday.—
IV
Because ye did not understandLove cometh from afar,A pilgrim out of Holy LandGuided by a star:Last night he came in cloak of grey,Begging. Ye knew him not: he went his way.