And, when grim Denmark’s black-browed prows Tore through thine Emerald sea, And many a wild blue eye was turned In savage lust on thee,— When, in the greenest of thy vales, The gusts of summer air Blew out in long and shaggy locks The sea-king’s yellow hair,— Yet Alfred was in England, And merry yet again Thy white-armèd Saxon maidens were When, on the drunken Dane, The sudden thunders of thy war With arrowy hail did pour, And grim jaws dropt that quivered yet With savage hymns to Thor. Thy merry brow was fair and free, Thine eye gleamed like a lance, When thy good ash and yew did crush The gilded knights of France; When Paris shook within her walls And trembled as she saw Her snow-white lilies trampled down Beneath thy lion’s paw. Queen Bess’s days were merry days, Renowned in song and tale, Stout days that saw the last brown bead Of many a tun of ale; Queen Bess’s days were golden days And thou full proudly then Did’st suckle at thy healthy breasts The best of Englishmen. Thou hast been merry, England, But art thou merry now, With sweat of agonizing years Upon thy harlot brow, Grimed with the smoke of furnaces That forge with damned art The bars of darkness that shut in The poor man’s starving heart? Oh free and Christian England! The Hindu wife no more Shall burn herself in that broad realm Saint George’s cross waves o’er; Thou art the champion of the right, The friend of the opprest, And none but freemen now shall tread Thine Indies of the West. But thou canst ship thy poison, Wrung from lean Hindu slaves, To fill all China with dead souls That rot in living graves; And, that thy faith may not be seen Barren of goodly works, At Saint Jean D’Acre thou sent’st up To Heaven three thousand Turks. Fling high your greasy caps in air, Slaves of the forge and loom, If on the soil ye’re pent and starved Yet underneath there’s room; Fling high your caps, for, God be praised, Your epitaph shall be, “Who sets his foot on English soil Thenceforward he is free!” Shout too for merry England Ye factory-children thin, Upon whose little hearts the sun Hath never once looked in; For, when your hollow eyes shall close The poor-house hell to balk, (Thank God for liberty of speech) The parliament will talk. Thank God, lean sons of Erin, Who reverence the Pope In England consciences are free And ye are free—to hope; And if the Church of England priest Distrain—why, what of that? Their consciences are freer still Who wear the shovel-hat.