The Visions of England Part 1

The Visions of England.

by Francis T. Palgrave.

INTRODUCTION.

Again, on behalf of readers of this NATIONAL LIBRARY, I have to thank a poet of our day--in this case the Oxford Professor of Poetry--for joining his voice to the voices of the past through which our better life is quickened for the duties of to-day. Not for his own verse only, but for his fine sense also of what is truest in the poets who have gone before, the name of Francis Turner Palgrave is familiar to us all. Many a home has been made the richer for his gathering of voices of the past into a dainty "Golden Treasury of English Songs." Of this work of his own I may cite what was said of it in _Macmillan's Magazine_ for October, 1882, by a writer of high authority in English Literature, Professor A. W. Ward, of Owens College. "A very eminent authority," said Professor Ward, "has accorded to Mr. Palgrave's historical insight, praise by the side of which all words of mine must be valueless," Canon [now Bishop] Stubbs writes:--"I do not think that there is one of the _Visions_ which does not carry my thorough consent and sympathy all through."

Here, then, Mr. Palgrave re-issues, for the help of many thousands more, his own songs of the memories of the Nation, addressed to a Nation that has not yet forfeited the praise of Milton. Milton said of the Englishman, "If we look at his native towardliness in the roughcast, without breeding, some nation or other may haply be better composed to a natural civility and right judgment than he. But if he get the benefit once of a wise and well-rectified nurture, I suppose that wherever mention is made of countries, manners, or men, the English people, among the first that shall be praised, may deserve to be accounted a right pious, right honest, and right hardy nation." So much is shown by the various utterances in this NATIONAL LIBRARY. So much is shown, in the present volume of it, by a poet's vision of the England that has been till now, and is what she has been.

H. M.

TO THE NAMES OF HENRY HALLAM AND FRANCIS PALGRAVE FRIENDS AND FELLOW-LABOURERS IN ENGLISH HISTORY FOR FORTY YEARS, WHO, DIFFERING OFTEN IN JUDGMENT, WERE AT ONE THROUGHOUT LIFE IN DEVOTED LOVE OF JUSTICE, TRUTH, AND ENGLAND, _IN AFFECTIONATE AND REVERENT REMEMBRANCE_ THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED

PREFACE

As the scheme which the Author has here endeavoured to execute has not, so far as he knows, the advantage of any near precedent in any literature, he hopes that a few explanatory words may be offered without incurring censure for egotism.

Our history is so eminently rich and varied, and at the same time, by the fact of our insular position, so stamped with unity, that from days very remote it has supplied matter for song. This, among Celts and Angles, at first was lyrical. But poetry, for many centuries after the Conquest, mainly took the annalistic form, and, despite the ability often shown, was hence predoomed to failure. For a nation's history cannot but present many dull or confused periods, many men and things intractable by poetry, though, perhaps, politically effective and important, which cannot be excluded from any narrative aiming at consecutiveness; and, by the natural laws of art, these pa.s.sages, when rendered in verse, in their effect become more prosaic than they would be in a prose rendering.

My attempt has therefore been to revert to the earlier and more natural conditions of poetry, and to offer,--not a continuous narrative; not poems on every critical moment or conspicuous man in our long annals,--but single lyrical pictures of such leading or typical characters and scenes in English history, and only such, as have seemed amenable to a strictly poetical treatment. Poetry, not History, has, hence, been my first and last aim; or, perhaps I might define it, History for Poetry's sake. At the same time, I have striven to keep throughout as closely to absolute historical truth in the design and colouring of the pieces as the exigencies of poetry permit:--the result aimed at being to unite the actual tone and spirit of the time concerned, with the best estimate which has been reached by the research and genius of modern investigators. Our island story, freed from the 'falsehood of extremes,'--exorcised, above all, from the seducing demon of party-spirit, I have thus here done my best to set forth. And as this line of endeavour has conducted and constrained me, especially when the seventeenth century is concerned, to judgments--supported indeed by historians conspicuous for research, ability, and fairness, but often remote from the views popularized by the writers of our own day,--upon these points a few justificatory notes have been added.

A double aim has hence governed and limited both the selection and the treatment of my subjects. The choice has necessarily fallen, often, not on simply picturesque incident or unfamiliar character, but on the men and things that we think of first, when thinking of the long chronicle of England,--or upon such as represent and symbolize the main current of it.

Themes, however, on which able or popular song is already extant,--notably in case of Scotland,--I have in general avoided. In the rendering, my desire has been always to rest the poetry of each Vision on its own intrinsic interest; to write with a straightforward eye to the object alone; not studious of ornament for ornament's sake; allowing the least possible overt intrusion of the writer's personality; and, in accordance with lyrical law, seeking, as a rule, to fix upon some factual picture for each poem.

To define, thus, the scope of what this book attempts, is, in itself, a confession of presumptuousness,--the writer's own sense of which is but feebly and imperfectly expressed in the words from Vergil's letter to Augustus prefixed as my motto. In truth, so rich and so wide are the materials, that to scheme a lyrical series which should really paint the _Gesta Anglorum_ in their fulness might almost argue 'lack of wit,'

_vitium mentis_, in much greater powers than mine. No criticism, however severe, can add to my own consciousness how far the execution of the work, in regard to each of its aims, falls below the plan. Yet I would allow myself the hope, great as the deficiencies may be, that the love of truth and the love of England are mine by inheritance in a degree sufficient to exempt this book, (the labour of several years), from infidelity to either:--that the intrinsic worth and weight of my subject may commend these songs, both at home, and in the many Englands beyond sea, to those who, (despite the inevitably more engrossing attractions of the Present, and the emphatic bias of modern culture towards the immediate and the tangible), maintain that high and soul-inspiring interest which, identifying us with our magnificent Past, and all its varied lessons of defeat and victory, offers at the same time,--under the guidance from above,--our sole secure guarantee for prosperous and healthy progress in the Future.

The world has cycles in its course, when all That once has been, is acted o'er again;

and only the nation which, at each moment of political or social evolution, looks lovingly backward to its own painfully-earned experience--_Respiciens_, _Prospiciens_, as Tennyson's own chosen device expresses it--has solid reason to hope, that its movement is true Advance--that its course is Upward.

It remains only to add, that the book has been 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 h.o.a.r: 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-s.h.i.+fting 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.