Who art thyself a thing Of whim and wavering; Free When His wings pen thee; Sole fully blest, to feel God whistle thee at heel; Drunk up As a dew-drop, When He bends down, sun-wise, Intemperable eyes; Most proud, When utterly bowed, To feel thyself and be His dear nonentity-- Caught Beyond human thought In the thunder-spout of Him, Until thy being dim And be Dead deathlessly. Stoop, stoop; for thou dost fear The nettle's wrathful spear, So slight Art thou of might! Rise; for Heaven hath no frown When thou to thee pluck'st down, Strong clod! The neck of God. _From_ "THE VICTORIAN ODE" _Written for the Queen's Golden Jubilee Day_, 1897 Lo, in this day we keep the yesterdays, And those great dead of the Victorian line.[D] They passed, they passed, but cannot pass away, For England feels them in her blood like wine. She was their mother, and she is their daughter, This lady of the water, And from their loins she draws the greatness which they were. And still their wisdom sways, Their power lives in her. Their thews it is, England, that lift thy sword, They are the splendour, England, in thy song, They sit unbidden at thy council-board, Their fame doth compass all thy coasts from wrong, And in thy sinews they are strong. Their absence is a presence and a guest In this day's feast; This living feast is also of the dead, And this, O England, is thine All Souls' Day. And when thy cities flake the night with flames, Thy proudest torches yet shall be their names. Come hither, proud and ancient East, Gather ye to this Lady of the North, And sit down with her at her solemn feast, Upon this culminant day of all her days; For ye have heard the thunder of her goings-forth, And wonder of her large imperial ways. Let India send her turbans, and Japan Her pictured vests from that remotest isle Seated in the antechambers of the Sun: And let her Western sisters for a while Remit long envy and disunion, And take in peace Her hand behind the buckler of her seas, 'Gainst which their wrath has splintered; come, for she Her hand ungauntlets in mild amity.