Others have gone; the way they went Sweet sunny now, and safe our nest. Humanity, enlightenment, Against the warning hum protest: Let the world hear that we know what is best. So do the beatific speak; Yet have they ears, and eyes as well; And if not with a paler cheek, They feel the shivers in them dwell, That something of a dubious future tell. For huge possessions render slack The power we need to hold them fast; Save when a quickened heart shall make Our people one, to meet what blast May blow from temporal heavens overcast. Our people one! Nor they with strength Dependent on a single arm: Alert, and braced the whole land’s length, Rejoicing in their manhood’s charm For friend or foe; to succour, not to harm. Has ever weakness won esteem? Or counts it as a prized ally? They who have read in History deem It ranks among the slavish fry, Whose claim to live justiciary Fates deny. It can not be declared we are A nation till from end to end The land can show such front to war As bids a crouching foe expend His ire in air, and preferably be friend. We dreading him, we do him wrong; For fears discolour, fears invite. Like him, our task is to be strong; Unlike him, claiming not by might To snatch an envied treasure as a right. So may a stouter brotherhood At home be signalled over sea For righteous, and be understood, Nay, welcomed, when ’tis shown that we All duties have embraced in being free. This Britain slumbering, she is rich; Lies placid as a cradled child; At times with an uneasy twitch, That tells of dreams unduly wild. Shall she be with a foreign drug defiled? The grandeur of her deeds recall; Look on her face so kindly fair: This Britain! and were she to fall, Mankind would breathe a harsher air, The nations miss a light of leading rare. ON COMO A RAINLESS darkness drew o’er the lake As we lay in our boat with oars unshipped. It seemed neither cloud nor water awake, And forth of the low black curtain slipped Thunderless lightning. Scoff no more At angels imagined in downward flight For the daughters of earth as fabled of yore: Here was beauty might well invite Dark heavens to gleam with the fire of a sun Resurgent; here the exchanged embrace Worthy of heaven and earth made one.