Astrophel and Other Poems: Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles; Swinburne, Vol. VISwinburne, Algernon Charles
General
Astrophel and Other Poems: Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles; Swinburne, Vol. VI
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
Poetry
When four hundred more and fifty years have risen and shone and
set,
Bright with names that men remember, loud with names that men
forget,
Haply here shall Eton's record be what England finds it yet.
THE UNION
I
Three in one, but one in three,
God, who girt her with the sea,
Bade our Commonweal to be:
Nought, if now not one.
Though fraud and fear would sever
The bond assured for ever,
Their shameful strength shall never
Undo what heaven has done.
II
South and North and West and East
Watch the ravens flock to feast,
Dense as round some death-struck beast,
Black as night is black.
Stand fast as faith together
In stress of treacherous weather
When hounds and wolves break tether
And Treason guides the pack.
III
Lovelier than thy seas are strong,
Glorious Ireland, sword and song
Gird and crown thee: none may wrong,
Save thy sons alone.
The sea that laughs around us
Hath sundered not but bound us:
The sun's first rising found us
Throned on its equal throne.
IV
North and South and East and West,
All true hearts that wish thee best
Beat one tune and own one quest,
Staunch and sure as steel.
God guard from dark disunion
Our threefold State's communion,
God save the loyal Union,
The royal Commonweal!
EAST TO WEST
Sunset smiles on sunrise: east and west are one,
Face to face in heaven before the sovereign sun.
From the springs of the dawn everlasting a glory renews and
transfigures the west,
From the depths of the sunset a light as of morning enkindles the
broad sea's breast,
And the lands and the skies and the waters are glad of the day's
and the night's work done.
Child of dawn, and regent on the world-wide sea,
England smiles on Europe, fair as dawn and free.
Not the waters that gird her are purer, nor mightier the winds that
her waters know.
But America, daughter and sister of England, is praised of them,
far as they flow:
Atlantic responds to Pacific the praise of her days that have been
and shall be.
So from England westward let the watchword fly,
So for England eastward let the seas reply;
Praise, honour, and love everlasting be sent on the wind's wings,
westward and east,
That the pride of the past and the pride of the future may mingle
as friends at feast,
And the sons of the lords of the world-wide seas be one till the
world's life die.
INSCRIPTIONS
FOR THE FOUR SIDES OF A PEDESTAL
I
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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