Come forth! the world’s aflame with flags and flowers, The shout of bells fills full the shattered air, This is the crown of all your golden hours, More than all other hours august and fair; This did the years prepare, A triumph for our Lady and our Queen, More rich than any king in any land hath seen. Clothed are your streets with scarlet, gold, and blue, Flowers under foot and banners over head, And while your people’s voice storms Heaven for you About your way are voiceless blessings shed, And over you are spread Wide wings of love, free love, tamed to your hand, Love that gold cannot buy, nor Majesty command. Not these mere visible millions only, share Your triumph--here all English hearts beat high, Nations far off your royal colours wear, And swell with unheard voice this loyal cry That strikes the English sky: A cloud of unseen witnesses is here To testify how great is England’s Queen, and dear. From out the grey-veiled past, long years away, Come visionary faces, vision-led, And splendid shapes that are not of our day, The spirits of the mute and mighty dead, To see how Time has sped The fortunes of their England, and behold How much more great she is than in the days of old. The world can see them not; but you can see-- You the inheritor of all the past Wherein the dead, in noble heraldry, Blazoned the shield of England, and forecast The charge it bears at last-- More splendid than the azure and the or Of the French lilies lost--long lost and sorrowed for. Here be the weaponed men, the English folk, Who in long ships across the swan’s bathfared, In whose rude tongue the voice of Freedom spoke, In whose rough hands the sword was bright and bared-- The men who did and dared, And to their sons bequeathed the fighting blood That drives to Victory and will not be withstood. Here, in your ordered festival, O Queen, Mixed with the crowd and all unseen of these, On their long swords the wild Norse rovers lean And watch the progress of your pageantries, And on this young June breeze Float the bright pennons of the Cressy spears-- Shine shadowy shafts that fell, as snow falls, at Poitiers. Here flutter phantom flags that once flew free Above the travail of the tournament; Here gleam old swords, once wet for Liberty; Old blood-stiff banners, worn with war and rent, Are with your fresh flowers blent, And by your crown, where love and fame consort, Shines the unvanquished cloven crown of Agincourt.