Not only for remembered loveliness, England, my mother, my own, we hold thee rare Who toil, and fight, and sicken beneath the glare Of brazen skies that smile on our duress, Making us crave thy cloudy state no less Than the sweet clarity of thy rain-wash’d air, Meadows in moonlight cool, and every fair Slow-fading flower of thy summer dress: Not for thy flowers, but for the unfading crown Of sacrifice our happy brothers wove thee: The joyous ones who laid thy beauty down Nor stayed to see it shamed. For these we love thee, For this (O love, O dread!) we hold thee more Divinely fair to-day than heretofore. A FAREWELL TO AFRICA ,, vspace:: 2 Now once again, upon the pole-star’s bearing, We plough these furrowed fields where no blade springeth; Again the busy trade in the halyards singeth Sun-whitened spindrift from the blown wave shearing; The uncomplaining sea suffers our faring; In a brazen glitter our little wake is lost, And the starry south rolls over until no ghost Remaineth of us and all our pitiful daring; For the sea beareth no trace of man’s endeavour, His might enarmoured, his prosperous argosies, Soundless, within her unsounded caves, forever She broodeth, knowing neither war nor peace, And our grey cruisers holds in mind no more Than the cedarn fleets that Sheba’s treasure bore. SONG What is the worth of war In a world that turneth, turneth About a tired star Whose flaming centre burneth No longer than the space Of the spent atom’s race: Where conquered lands, soon, soon Lie waste as the pale moon? What is the worth of art In a world that fast forgetteth Those who have wrung its heart With beauty that love begetteth, Whose faint flames vanish quite In that star-powdered night Where even the mighty ones Shine only as far suns? And what is beauty worth, Sweet beauty, that persuadeth Of her immortal birth, Then, as a flower, fadeth: Or love, whose tender years End with the mourner’s tears, Die, when the mourner’s breath Is quiet, at last, in death? Beauty and love are one, Even when fierce war clashes: Even when our fiery sun Hath burnt itself to ashes, And the dead planets race Unlighted through blind space, Beauty will still shine there: Wherefore, I worship her. THE HAWTHORN SPRAY I saw a thrush light on a hawthorn spray, One moment only, spilling creamy blossom, While the bough bent beneath her speckled bosom, Bent, and recovered, and she fluttered away. The branch was still; but, in my heart, a pain Than the thorn’d spray more cruel, stabbed me, only Remembering days in a far land and lonely When I had never hoped for summer again. THE PAVEMENT