Afflict with their misrule the indignant land
Where Washington hath left
His aweful memory
A light for after times!
Vile instruments of fallen Tyranny.
In their own annals, by their countrymen,
For lasting shame shall they be written down.
Soon may the better Genius there prevail
Then will the Island Queen of Ocean law
The thunderbolt aside.
And, twining olives with her laurel noun,
Rest in the Bower of Peace.
3.
But not in ignominious ease,
Within the Bower of Peace supine,
The Ocean Queen shall rest!
Her other toils await,..
A holier warfare,.. nobler victories;
And amaranthine wreaths,
Which, when the laurel crown grows sere,
Will live for ever green.
4.
Hear me, O England! rightly may I claim
Thy favourable audience, Queen of Isles,
My Mother-land revered!
For in the perilous hour,
When weaker spirits stood aghast,
And reptile tongues, to thy dishonour bold,
Spit their dull venom on the public ear,
My voice was heard,..a voice of hope,
Of confidence and joy,...
Yea of such prophecy
As Wisdom to her sons doth aye vouchsafe,
When with pure heart and diligent desire
They seek the fountain springs,
And of the Ages past
Take counsel reverently.
5.
Nobly hast thou stood up
Against the foulest Tyranny that ere,
In elder or in later times,
Hath outraged human kind.
O glorious England! thou hast borne thyself
Religiously and bravely in that strife:
And happier victory hath blest thine arms
Than, in the days of yore.
Thine own Plantagenets achieved,
Or Marlborough, wise in council as in field,
Or Wolfe, heroic name.
Now gird thyself for other war;
Look round thee, and behold what ills,
Remediable and yet unremedied,
Afflict man’s wretched race!
Put on the panoply of faith!
Bestir thyself against thine inward foes.
Ignorance and Want, with all their brood
Of miseries and of crimes.
6.
Powerful thou art: imperial Rome,
When in the Augustan age she closed
The temple of the two-laced God,
Could boast no power like thine.
Less opulent was Spain,
When Mexico her sumless riches sent
To that proud monarchy;
And Hayti’s ransack’d caverns gave their gold,
And from Potosi’s recent veins
The unabating stream of treasure flow’d.
And blest art thou, above all nations blest.
For thou art Freedom’s own beloved Isle!
The light of Science shines
Conspicuous like a beacon on thy shores;
Thy martyrs purchased at the stake
Faith uncorrupt for thine inheritance;
And by thine hearths Domestic Parity,
Safe from the infection of a tainted age,
Hath kept her sanctuaries.
Yet, O dear England! powerful as thou art,
And rich and wise and blest,
Yet would I see thee, O my Mother-land!
Mightier and wealthier, wiser, happier still I
7.
For still doth Ignorance
Maintain large empire here,
Dark and unblest amid surrounding light;
Even as within this favour’d spot,
Earth’s wonder and her pride,
The traveller on his way
Beholds with weary eye
Bleak moorland, noxious fen, and lonely heath,
In drear extension spread,
Oh grief! that spirits of celestial seed,
Whom ever-teeming Nature hath brought forth,
With all the human faculties divine
Of sense and soul endued,..
Disherited of knowledge and of bliss,
Mere creatures of brute life,
Should grope in darkness lost!
8.
Must this reproach endure?
Honour and praise to him
The universal friend,
The general benefactor of mankind;
He who from Coromandel’s shores
His perfected discovery brought;
He by whose generous toils
This foul reproach ere long shall be effaced,
This root of evil be eradicate!
Yea, generations yet unborn
Shall owe their weal to him,
And future nations bless
The honour’d name of Bell.
9.
Now may that blessed edifice
Of public good be rear’d
Which holy Edward traced,
The spotless Tudor, he whom Death
Too early summon’d to his heavenly throne.
For Brunswick’s line was this great work reserved,
For Brunswick’s fated line;
They who from papal darkness, and the thrall
Of that worst bondage which doth hold
The immortal spirit chain’d,
Saved us in happy hour.
Fitly for them was this great work reserved;
So, Britain, shall thine aged monarch’s wish
Receive its due accomplishment,
That wish which with the good,
(Had he no other praise,)
Through all succeeding times would rank his name,
That all within his realms
Might learn the Book, which all
Who rightly learn shall live.
10.
From public fountains the perennial stream
Of public weal must flow.
O England! wheresoe’er thy churches stand,
There on that sacred ground,
Where the rich harvest of mortality
Is laid, as in a garner, treasured up,
There plant the Tree of Knowledge! Water it
With thy perpetual bounty! It shall spread
Its branches o’er the venerable pile,
Shield it against the storm,
And bring forth fruits of life.
11.
Train up thy children, England! in the ways
Of righteousness, and feed them with the bread
Of wholesome doctrine. Where hast thou thy mines
But in their industry?
Thy bulwarks where, but in their breasts?
Thy might, but in their arms?
Shall not their numbers therefore be thy wealth,
Thy strength, thy power, thy safety, and thy pride?
Oh grief then, grief and shame,
If, in this flourishing land,
There should be dwellings where the new-born babe
Doth bring unto its parent’s soul no joy!
Where squalid Poverty
Receives it at its birth,
And on her wither’d knees
Gives it the scanty food of discontent!
12.
Queen of the Seas! enlarge thyself;
Redundant as thou art of life and power,
Be thou the hive of nations,
And send thy swarms abroad!
Send them like Greece of old.
With arts and science to enrich
The uncultivated earth;
But with more precious gifts than Greece or Tyre
Or elder Egypt, to the world bequeath’d;
Just laws, and rightful polity,
And, crowning all, the dearest
boon of Heaven,
Its word and will reveal’d.
Queen of the Seas! enlarge
The place of thy pavilion. Let them stretch
The curtains of thine habitations forth;
Spare not; but lengthen thou
Thy cords, make strong thy slakes.
13.
Queen of the Seas! enlarge thyself;
Send thou thy swarms abroad!
For in the years to come.
Though centuries or millenniums intervene,
Where’er thy progeny.
Thy language, and thy spirit shall be found...
If on Ontario’s shores,
Or late-explored Missouri’s pastures wide.
Or in that Austral world long sought,
The many-isled Pacific,., yea where waves,
Now breaking over coral reefs, affright
The venturous mariner,
When islands shall have grown, and cities risen
In cocoa groves embower’d;..
Where’er thy language lives,
By whatsoever name the land be call’d,
That land is English still, and there
Thy influential spirit dwells and reigns.
Thrones fall, and Dynasties are changed;
Empires decay and sink
Beneath their own unwieldy weight;
Dominion passeth like a cloud away:
The imperishable mind
Survives all meaner things.
14.
Train up thy children, England, in the ways
Of righteousness, and feed them with the bread
Of wholesome doctrine. Send thy swarms abroad
Send forth thy humanizing arts,
Thy stirring enterprize,
Thy liberal polity, thy Gospel light!
Illume the dark idolater,
Reclaim the savage! O thou Ocean Queen!
Be these thy toils when thou hast laid
The thunderbolt aside:
He who hath blest thine arms
Will bless thee in these holy works of Peace!
Father! thy kingdom come, and as in Heaven
Thy will be done on Earth!
Keswick.
CARMINA AULICA
WRITTEN IN 1814, ON THE ARRIVAL OF THE ALLIED SOVEREIGNS IN ENGLAND.
ODE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE REGENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
1.
PRINCE of the mighty Isle!
Proud day for thee and for thy kingdoms this,
When Britain round her spear
The olive garland twines, by Victory won.
2.
Rightly may’st thou rejoice,
For in a day of darkness and of storms,
An evil day, a day of woe,
To thee the sceptre fell.
The Continent was leagued,
It’s numbers wielded by one will,
Against the mighty Isle;
All shores were hostile to the Red Cross flag,
All ports against it closed;
Save where, behind their ramparts driven,
The Spaniard, and the faithful Portugal,
Each on the utmost limits of his land,
Invincible of heart,
Stood firm, and put their trust
In their good cause and thee.
3.
Such perils menaced from abroad;
At home worse dangers compass’d thee,
Where shallow counsellors,
A weak but clamorous crew,
Pester’d the land, and with their withering breath
Poison’d the public ear.
For peace the feeble raised their factious cry:
Oh, madness, to resist
The Invincible in arms!
Seek the peace-garland from his dreadful hand!
And at the Tyrant’s feet
They would have knelt to take
The wreath of aconite for Britain’s brow.
Prince of the mighty Isle!
Rightly may’st thou rejoice,
For in the day of danger thou did’st turn
From their vile counsels thine indignant heart;
Rightly may’st thou rejoice,
When Britain round her spear
The olive-garland twines, by Victory won.
4.
Rejoice, thou mighty Isle,
Queen of the Seas! rejoice;
Ring round, ye merry bells,
Till every steeple rock,
And the wide air grow giddy with your joy!
Flow streamers to the breeze!
And ye victorious banners to the sun
Unroll the proud Red Cross!
Now let the anvil rest;
Shut up the loom, and open the school-doors,
That young and old may with festivities
Hallow for memory, through all after years,
This memorable time:
This memorable time,
When Peace, long absent, long deplored, returns.
Not as vile Faction would have brought her home,
Her countenance for shame abased,
In servile weeds array’d,
Submission leading her,
Fear, Sorrow, and Repentance following close;
And War, scarce deigning to conceal
Beneath the mantle’s folds his armed plight,
Dogging her steps with deadly eye intent,
Sure of his victim, and in devilish joy
Laughing behind the mask.
5.
Not thus doth Peace return!..
A blessed visitant she comes,...
Honour in his right hand
Doth lead her like a bride;
And Victory goes before;
Hope, Safety, and Prosperity, and Strength,
Come in her joyful train.
Now let the churches ring
With high thanksgiving songs,
And the full organ pour
It’s swelling peals to Heaven,
The while the grateful nation bless in prayer
Their Warriors and their Statesmen and their Prince,
Whose will, whose mind, whose arm
Have thus with happy end their efforts crown’d.
Prince of the mighty Isle,
Rightly may’st thou rejoice,
When Britain round her spear
The olive-garland twines, by Victory won.
6.
Enjoy thy triumph now,
Prince of the mighty Isle!
Enjoy the rich reward, so rightly due,
When rcscued nations, with one heart and voice,
Thy counsels bless and thee.
Thou on thine own Firm Island seest the while,
As if the tales of old Romance
Were but to typify these splendid days,
Princes and Potentates,
And Chiefs renown’d in arms,
From their great enterprize achieved,
In friendship and in joy collected here.
7.
Rejoice, thou mighty Isle!
Queen of the Seas! rejoice;
For ne’er in elder nor in later times
Have such illustrious guests
Honour’d thy silver shores.
No such assemblage shone in Edward’s hall,
Nor brighter triumphs graced his glorious reign.
Prince of the mighty Isle,
Proud day for thee and for thy kingdoms this!
Rightly mayst thou rejoice,
When Britain round her spear
The olive-garland twines, by Victory won.
8.
Yet in the pomp of these festivities
One mournful thought will rise within thy mind,
The thought of Him who sits
In mental as in visual darkness lost.
How had his heart been fill’d
With deepest gratitude to Heaven,
Had he beheld this day!
O King of ki
ngs, and Lord of lords,
Thou who hast visited thus heavily
The anointed head,..
Oh! for one little interval,
One precious hour,
Remove the blindness from his soul,
That he may know it all,
And bless thee ere he die.
9.
Thou also should’st have seen
This harvest of thy hopes,
Thou whom the guilty act
Of a proud spirit overthrown,
Sent to thine early grave in evil hour!
Forget not him, my country, in thy joy,
But let thy grateful hand
With laurel garlands hang
The tomb of Perceval.
Virtuous, and firm, and wise,
The Ark of Britain in her darkest day
He steer’d through stormy seas;
And long shall Britain hold his memory dear,
And faithful History give
His meed of lasting praise.
10.
That earthly meed shall his compeers enjoy,
Britain’s true counsellors,
Who see with just success their counsels crown’d
They have their triumph now, to him denied;
Proud day for them is this!
Prince of the mighty Isle!
Proud day for them and thee,
When Britain round her spear
The olive-garland twines, by Victory won.
ODE TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, ALEXANDER THE FIRST, EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS.
1.
CONQUEROR, Deliverer, Friend of human-kind!
The free, the happy, Island welcomes thee;
Thee from thy wasted realms,
So signally revenged;
From Prussia’s rescued plains;
From Dresden’s field of slaughter, where the ball,
Which struck Moreau’s dear life,
Was turn’d from thy more precious head aside;
From Leipsic’s dreadful day,
From Elbe, and Rhine, and Seine,
In thy career of conquest overpast;
From the proud Capital
Of haughty France subdued,
Then to her rightful line of Kings restored;
Thee, Alexander! thee, the Great, the Good,
The Glorious, the Beneficent, the Just,
Thee to her honour’d shores
The mighty Island welcomes in her joy.
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 51