So on the English Channel boasts the foe On whose imperial brow death's helmet nods. Look where his hosts o'er bloody Belgium go, And mix a nation's past with blazing sods! A kingdom's waste! a people's homeless woe! Man's broken Word, and violated gods! II Far fall the day when England's realm shall see The sunset of dominion! Her increase Abolishes the man-dividing seas, And frames the brotherhood on earth to be! She, in free peoples planting sovereignty, Orbs half the civil world in British peace; And though time dispossess her, and she cease, Rome-like she greatens in man's memory. Oh, many a crown shall sink in war's turmoil, And many a new republic light the sky, Fleets sweep the ocean, nations till the soil, Genius be born and generations die. Orient and Occident together toil, Ere such a mighty work man rears on high! III Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread The wine-press of the nations; fast the blood Pours from the side of Europe; in the flood On the septentrional watershed The rivers of fair France are running red! England, the mother-aerie of our brood, That on the summit of dominion stood, Shakes in the blast: heaven battles overhead! Lift up thy head, O Rheims, of ages heir That treasured up in thee their glorious sum; Upon whose brow, prophetically fair, Flamed the great morrow of the world to come; Haunt with thy beauty this volcanic air Ere yet thou close, O Flower of Christendom! IV As when the shadow of the sun's eclipse Sweeps on the earth, and spreads a spectral air, As if the universe were dying there, On continent and isle the darkness dips Unwonted gloom, and on the Atlantic slips; So in the night the Belgian cities flare Horizon-wide; the wandering people fare Along the roads, and load the fleeing ships. And westward borne that planetary sweep Darkening o'er England and her times to be, Already steps upon the ocean-deep! Watch well, my country, that unearthly sea, Lest when thou thinkest not, and in thy sleep, Unapt for war, that gloom enshadow thee. V I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer. How many wars have been in my brief years! All races and all faiths, both hemispheres, My eyes have seen embattled everywhere The wide earth through; yet do I not despair Of peace, that slowly through far ages nears; Though not to me the golden morn appears, My faith is perfect in time's issue fair. For man doth build on an eternal scale, And his ideals are framed of hope deferred; The millennium came not; yet Christ did not fail, Though ever unaccomplished is His word; Him Prince of Peace, though unenthroned, we hail, Supreme when in all bosoms He be heard. VI