Thy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face in the crown of the steep sky's arch, And the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise of the thorn and the larch: Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the wildest of winds that blow, Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow, And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live woods feel not the frost's flame parch; For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt at the heart of the forest aglow, And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands of the gods of the winds of March. THE COMMONWEAL 1887 I Eight hundred years and twenty-one Have shone and sunken since the land Whose name is freedom bore such brand As marks a captive, and the sun Beheld her fettered hand. II But ere dark time had shed as rain Or sown on sterile earth as seed That bears no fruit save tare and weed An age and half an age again, She rose on Runnymede. III Out of the shadow, starlike still, She rose up radiant in her right, And spake, and put to fear and flight The lawless rule of awless will That pleads no right save might. IV Nor since hath England ever borne The burden laid on subject lands, The rule that curbs and binds all hands Save one, and marks for servile scorn The heads it bows and brands. V A commonweal arrayed and crowned With gold and purple, girt with steel At need, that foes must fear or feel, We find her, as our fathers found, Earth's lordliest commonweal. VI And now that fifty years are flown Since in a maiden's hand the sign Of empire that no seas confine First as a star to seaward shone, We see their record shine. VII A troubled record, foul and fair, A simple record and serene, Inscribes for praise a blameless queen, For praise and blame an age of care And change and ends unseen. VIII Hope, wide of eye and wild of wing, Rose with the sundawn of a reign Whose grace should make the rough ways plain, And fill the worn old world with spring, And heal its heart of pain. IX Peace was to be on earth; men's hope Was holier than their fathers had, Their wisdom not more wise than glad: They saw the gates of promise ope, And heard what love's lips bade. X Love armed with knowledge, winged and wise, Should hush the wind of war, and see, They said, the sun of days to be Bring round beneath serener skies A stormless jubilee. XI