The wars and the woes and the glories That quicken and lighten and rain From the clouds of its chronicled stories, The passion, the pride, and the pain, Where echoes were mute and the token Was lost of the spells that they spake, Rise bright at your bidding, unbroken Of ages that break. For you, and for none of us other, Time is not: the dead that must live Hold commune with you as a brother By grace of the life that you give. The heart that was in them is in you, Their soul in your spirit endures: The strength of their song is the sinew Of this that is yours. Hence is it that life, everlasting As light and as music, abides In the sound of the surge of it, casting Sound back to the surge of the tides, Till sons of the sons of the Norsemen Watch, hurtling to windward and lea, Round England, unbacked of her horsemen, The steeds of the sea. _Algernon Charles Swinburne._ HARDY XCVIII THE GOING OF THE BATTERY Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire, They stepping steadily--only too readily!-- Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher. Great guns were gleaming there--living things seeming there-- Cloaked in their tar cloths, upnosed to the night: Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe, Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight. Lamplight all drearily, blinking and blearily Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss, While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them Not to court peril that honour could miss. Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded those eyes of ours, When at last moved away under the arch All we loved. Aid for them each woman prayed for them Treading back slowly the track of their march. Someone said ‘Nevermore will they come! Evermore Are they now lost to us!’ Oh, it was wrong! Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways-- Bear them through safely--in brief time or long. Yet--voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us, Hint, in the night-time, when life-beats are low, Other and graver things.... Hold we to braver things-- Wait we--in trust--what Time’s fullness shall show. _Thomas Hardy._ DOBSON XCIX BALLAD OF THE ARMADA King Philip had vaunted his claims; He had sworn for a year he would sack us; With an army of heathenish names He was coming to fagot and stack us; Like the thieves of the sea he would track us, And scatter our ships on the main; But we had bold Neptune to back us-- And where are the galleons of Spain?