Forth, with the rain in our hair

And the salt sweet foam in our lips:

In the teeth of the hard glad weather,
In the blown wet face of the sea;
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.

AN APPEAL

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

Art thou indeed among these,
Thou of the tyrannous crew,
The kingdoms fed upon blood,
O queen from of old of the seas,
England, art thou of them too
That drink of the poisonous flood,
That hide under poisonous trees?

Nay, thy name from of old,
Mother, was pure, or we dreamed;
Purer we held thee than this,
Purer fain would we hold;
So goodly a glory it seemed,
A fame so bounteous of bliss,
So more precious than gold.

A praise so sweet in our ears,
That thou in the tempest of things
As a rock for a refuge shouldst stand,
In the blood-red river of tears

Poured forth for the triumph of kings;
A safeguard, a sheltering land,
In the thunder and torrent of years.

Strangers came gladly to thee,
Exiles, chosen of men,
Safe for thy sake in thy shade,
Sat down at thy feet and were free.
So men spake of thee then;

Now shall their speaking be stayed!
Ah, so let it not be!

Not for revenge or affright,
Pride, or a tyrannous lust,
Cast from thee the crown of thy praise.
Mercy was thine in thy might;
Strong when thou wert, thou wert just;
Now, in the wrong-doing days,
Cleave thou, thou at least, to the right.

How should one charge thee, how sway,
Save by the memories that were?
Not thy gold nor the strength of thy ships,
Nor the might of thine armies at bay,
Made thee, mother, most fair;

But a word from republican lips
Said in thy name in thy day.

Hast thou said it, and hast thou forgot!
Is thy praise in thine ears as a scoff?
Blood of men guiltless was shed,
Children, and souls without spot,
Shed, but in places far off;
Let slaughter no more be, said
Milton; and slaughter was not.

Was it not said of thee too,
Now, but now, by thy foes,

By the slaves that had slain their France
And thee would slay as they slew-
"Down with her walls that enclose
Freemen that eye us askance.
Fugitives, men that are true!"

This was thy praise or thy blame
From bondsman or freeman-to be
Pure from pollution of slaves,
Clean of their sins, and thy name
Bloodless, innocent, free;

Now if thou be not, thy waves
Wash not from off thee thy shame.

Freeman he is not, but slave,
Whoso in fear for the State
Cries for surety of blood,
Help of gibbet and grave;
Neither is any land great
Whom, in her fear-stricken mood,
These things only can save.

Lo! how fair from afar,
Taintless of tyranny, stands
Thy mighty daughter, for years
Who trod the winepress of war,-
Shines with immaculate hands;
Slays not a foe, neither fears;
Stains not peace with a scar.

Be not as tyrant or slave,
England; be not as these,
Thou that wert other than they.
Stretch out thine hand, but to save;
Put forth thy strength, and release:
Lest there arise, if thou slay,

Thy shame as a ghost from the grave.

RECESSIONAL (1897)

RUDYARD KIPLING

God of our fathers, known of oldLord of our far-flung battle lineBeneath whose awful hand we hold

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

God said, Let there be light! and there was light.

Then heard we sounds as though the Earth did sing

And the Earth's angel cried upon the wing: We saw priests fall together and turn white:

And covered in the dust from the sun's sight,

A king was spied, and yet another king. We said: "The round world keeps its balancing:

On this globe, they and we are opposite,If it is day with us, with them 't is night. Still, Man, in thy just pride, remember this: Thou hadst not made that thy sons' sons shall ask

What the word king may mean in their day's task,

But for the light that led: and if light is, It is because God said, Let there be light."

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labor and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright. (1849)

THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND

ROBERT BROWNING

That second time they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea,
And Austria, hounding far and wide
Her blood-hounds through the country-side,
Breathed hot and instant on my trace,-
I made six days a hiding-place
Of that dry green old aqueduct
Where I and Charles, when boys, have
plucked

The fire-flies from the roof above,

Bright creeping through the moss they love: -How long it seems since Charles was lost!

Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed
The country in my very sight;
And when that peril ceased at night,
The sky broke out in red dismay
With signal fires; well, there I lay

Close covered o'er in my recess,
Up to the neck in ferns and cress,
Thinking on Metternich our friend,
And Charles's miserable end,
And much beside, two days; the third,
Hunger o'ercame me when I heard
The peasants from the village go
To work among the maize; you know,
With us in Lombardy, they bring
Provisions packed on mules, a string
With little bells that cheer their task,
And casks, and boughs on every cask
To keep the sun's heat from the wine;
These I let pass in jingling line,
And, close on them, dear noisy crew,
The peasants from the village, too;
For at the very rear would troop
Their wives and sisters in a group

To help, I knew. When these had passed,
I threw my glove to strike the last,
Taking the chance: she did not start,
Much less cry out, but stooped apart,
One instant rapidly glanced round,
And saw me beckon from the ground.
A wild bush grows and hides my crypt;
She picked my glove up while she stripped
A branch off, then rejoined the rest
With that; my glove lay in her breast.
Then I drew breath; they disappeared:
It was for Italy I feared.

An hour, and she returned alone Exactly where my glove was thrown. Meanwhile came many thoughts; on me Rested the hopes of Italy.

I had devised a certain tale

Which, when 't was told her, could not fail
Persuade a peasant of its truth;
I meant to call a freak of youth
This hiding, and give hopes of pay,
And no temptation to betray.
But when I saw that woman's face,
Its calm simplicity of grace,
Our Italy's own attitude

In which she walked thus far, and stood,
Planting each naked foot so firm,

To crush the snake and spare the worm-
At first sight of her eyes, I said,
"I am that man upon whose head
They fix the price, because I hate
The Austrians over us; the State
Will give you gold-oh, gold so much—
If you betray me to their clutch,
And be your death, for aught I know,
If once they find you saved their foe.
Now, you must bring me food and drink,
And also paper, pen, and ink,

And carry safe what I shall write
To Padua, which you'll reach at night
Before the duomo shuts; go in,
And wait till Tenebræ begin;
Walk to the third confessional,
Between the pillar and the wall,
And kneeling whisper, Whence comes.
peace?

Say it a second time, then cease;
And if the voice inside returns,
From Christ and Freedom; what concerns
The cause of Peace?-for answer, slip
My letter where you placed your lip;
Then come back happy we have done
Our mother service-I, the son,

As you the daughter of our land!"

Three mornings more, she took her stand
In the same place, with the same eyes:
I was no surer of sunrise

Than of her coming. We conferred
Of her own prospects, and I heard
She had a lover-stout and tall,
She said then let her eyelids fall,
"He could do much"-as if some doubt
Entered her heart,-then, passing out,
"She could not speak for others, who
Had other thoughts; herself she knew;
And so she brought me drink and food.
After four days, the scouts pursued
Another path; at last arrived

The help my Paduan friends contrived
To furnish me: she brought the news.
For the first time I could not choose
But kiss her hand, and lay my own
Upon her head-"This faith was shown
To Italy, our mother; she

Uses my hand and blesses thee."
She followed down to the sea-shore;
I left and never saw her more.

Charles, perjured traitor, for his part,
Should die slow of a broken heart
Under his new employers. Last
-Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast
De I grow old and out of strength.
If I resolved to seek at length
My father's house again, how scared
They all would look, and unprepared!
M- brothers live in Austria's pay
-Disowned me long ago, men say;
And all my early mates who used
To praise me so-perhaps induced
More than one early step of mine-
Are turning wise: while some opine
"Freedom grows license," some suspect
"Haste breeds delay," and recollect
They always said, such premature
Beginnings never could endure!
So, with a sullen "All's for best,"
The land seems settling to its rest.
I think then, I should wish to stand
This evening in that dear, lost land,
Over the sea the thousand miles,
And know if yet that woman smiles
With the calm smile; some little farm
She lives in there, no doubt; what harm
If I sat on the door-side bench,
And, while her spindle made a trench
Fantastically in the dust,

Inquired of all her fortunes-just
Her children's ages and their names,
And what may be the husband's aims
For each of them. I'd talk this out,
And sit there, for an hour about,
Then kiss her hand once more, and lay
Mine on her head, and go my way.

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun

To give it my loving friends to keep! Naught man could do, have I left undone: And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run.

There's nobody on the house-tops now-
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate-or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.

"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me?"-God might question; now instead, "T is God shall repay: I am safer so.

That on the front of noon was as a flame In the great year nigh twenty years agone When all the heavens of Europe shook and shone

With stormy wind and lightning, keeps its fame

And bears its witness all day through the same;

Not for past days and great deeds past alone,

Kossuth, we praise thee as our Landor praised,

But that now too we know thy voice upraised,

Thy voice, the trumpet of the truth of God, Thine hand, the thunder-bearer's, raised to smite

As with heaven's lightning for a sword and rod

Men's heads abased before the Muscovite.

FRANCE 18701

GEORGE MEREDITH

We look for her that sunlike stood Upon the forehead of our day,

Б

An orb of nations, radiating food
For body and for mind alway.
Where is the Shape of glad array;
The nervous hands, the front of steel,
The clarion tongue? Where is the bold
proud face?

We see a vacant place;

We hear an iron heel.

O she that made the brave appeal
For manhood when our time was dark,
And from our fetters struck the spark
Which was as lightning to reveal
New seasons, with the swifter play
Of pulses, and benigner day;
She that divinely shook the dead
From living man; that stretched ahead
Her resolute forefinger straight,
And marched towards the gloomy gate

Of earth's Untried, gave note, and in
The good name of Humanity

Called forth the daring vision! she,
She likewise half corrupt of sin,
Angel and Wanton! Can it be?
Her star has foundered in eclipse,
The shriek of madness on her lips;
Shreds of her, and no more, we see.

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1 Written at the moment of France's humillation by Germany, when Paris was in the hands of the enemy.