A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems Part 11

IV.

Brute throats that miss the collar, Bowed backs that ask the whip, Stretched hands that lack the dollar, And many a lie-seared lip, Forefeel and foreshow for us signs as funereal As the signs that were regal of yore and imperial; We shall pa.s.s as the princes they served, We shall reap what our fathers deserved, And the place that was England's be taken By one that is worthier than she, And the yoke of her empire be shaken Like spray from the sea.

V.

French hounds, whose necks are aching Still from the chain they crave, In dog-day madness breaking The dog-leash, thus may rave: But the seas that for ages have fostered and fenced her Laugh, echoing the yell of their kennel against her And their moan if destruction draw near them And the roar of her laughter to hear them; For she knows that if Englishmen be men Their England has all that she craves; All love and all honour from free men, All hatred from slaves.

VI.

All love that rests upon her Like suns.h.i.+ne and sweet air, All light of perfect honour And praise that ends in prayer, She wins not more surely, she wears not more proudly, Than the token of tribute that clatters thus loudly, The tribute of foes when they meet That rattles and rings at her feet, The tribute of rage and of rancour, The tribute of slaves to the free, To the people whose hope hath its anchor Made fast in the sea.

VII.

No fool that bows the back he Feels fit for scourge or brand, No scurril scribes that lackey The lords of Lackeyland, No penman that yearns, as he turns on his pallet, For the place or the pence of a peer or a valet, No whelp of as currish a pack As the litter whose yelp it gives back, Though he answer the cry of his brother As echoes might answer from caves, Shall be witness as though for a mother Whose children were slaves.

VIII.

But those found fit to love her, Whose love has root in faith, Who hear, though darkness cover Time's face, what memory saith, Who seek not the service of great men or small men But the weal that is common for comfort of all men, Those yet that in trust have beholden Truth's dawn over England grow golden And quicken the darkness that stagnates And scatter the shadows that flee, Shall reply for her meanest as magnates And masters by sea.

IX.

And all shall mark her station, Her message all shall hear, When, equal-eyed, the nation Bids all her sons draw near, And freedom be more than tradition or faction, And thought be no swifter to serve her than action, And justice alone be above her, That love may be prouder to love her, And time on the crest of her story Inscribe, as remembrance engraves, The sign that subdues with its glory Kings, princes, and slaves.

_A WORD FROM THE PSALMIST._

PS. XCIV. 8.

I.

'Take heed, ye unwise among the people: O ye fools, when will ye understand?'

From pulpit or choir beneath the steeple, Though the words be fierce, the tones are bland.

But a louder than the Church's echo thunders In the ears of men who may not choose but hear, And the heart in him that hears it leaps and wonders, With triumphant hope astonished, or with fear For the names whose sound was power awaken Neither love nor reverence now nor dread; Their strongholds and shrines are stormed and taken, Their kingdom and all its works are dead.

II.

Take heed: for the tide of time is risen: It is full not yet, though now so high That spirits and hopes long pent in prison Feel round them a sense of freedom nigh, And a savour keen and sweet of brine and billow, And a murmur deep and strong of deepening strength.

Though the watchman dream, with sloth or pride for pillow, And the night be long, not endless is its length.

From the springs of dawn, from clouds that sever From the equal heavens and the eastward sea, The witness comes that endures for ever, Till men be brethren and thralls be free.

III.

But the wind of the wings of dawn expanding Strikes chill on your hearts as change and death.

Ye are old, but ye have not understanding, And proud, but your pride is a dead man's breath.

And your wise men, toward whose words and signs ye hearken, And your strong men, in whose hands ye put your trust, Strain eyes to behold but clouds and dreams that darken, Stretch hands that can find but weapons red with rust.

Their watchword rings, and the night rejoices, But the lark's note laughs at the night-bird's notes-- 'Is virtue verily found in voices?

Or is wisdom won when all win votes?

IV.

'Take heed, ye unwise indeed, who listen When the wind's wings beat and s.h.i.+ft and change; Whose hearts are uplift, whose eyeb.a.l.l.s glisten, With desire of new things great and strange.

Let not dreams misguide nor any visions wrong you: That which has been, it is now as it was then.

Is not Compromise of old a G.o.d among you?

Is not Precedent indeed a king of men?

But the windy hopes that lead mislead you, And the sounds ye hear are void and vain.

Is a vote a coat? will franchise feed you, Or words be a roof against the rain?

V.

'Eight ages are gone since kings.h.i.+p entered, With knights and peers at its harnessed back, And the land, no more in its own strength centred, Was cast for a prey to the princely pack.

But we pared the fangs and clipped the ravening claws of it, And good was in time brought forth of an evil thing, And the land's high name waxed lordlier in war because of it, When chartered Right had bridled and curbed the king.

And what so fair has the world beholden, And what so firm has withstood the years, As Monarchy bound in chains all golden, And Freedom guarded about with peers?

VI.

'How think ye? know not your lords and masters What collars are meet for brawling throats?

Is change not mother of strange disasters?

Shall plague or peril be stayed by votes?

Out of precedent and privilege and order Have we plucked the flower of compromise, whose root Bears blossoms that s.h.i.+ne from border again to border, And the mouths of many are fed with its temperate fruit.

Your masters are wiser than ye, their henchmen: Your lords know surely whereof ye have need.

Equality? Fools, would you fain be Frenchmen?

Is equity more than a word indeed?

VII.

'Your voices, forsooth, your most sweet voices, Your worthy voices, your love, your hate, Your choice, who know not whereof your choice is, What stays are these for a stable state?

Inconstancy, blind and deaf with its own fierce babble, Swells ever your throats with storm of uncertain cheers: He leans on straws who leans on a light-souled rabble; His trust is frail who puts not his trust in peers.'

So shrills the message whose word convinces Of righteousness knaves, of wisdom fools; That serfs may boast them because of princes, And the weak rejoice that the strong man rules.

VIII.

True friends, ye people, are these, the faction Full-mouthed that flatters and snails and bays, That fawns and foams with alternate action, And mocks the names that it soils with praise.