Call back the Kingly Past! Where, bright and broadening to the main, Rolls on the scornful River,-- Stout hearts beat high on Tilbury's plain,-- Our Marathon for ever! No breeze above, but on the mast The pennon shook as with the blast. Forth from the cloud the day-god strode; Flash'd back from steel, the splendour glow'd,-- Leapt the loud joy from Earth to Heaven, As through the ranks asunder riven, The Warrior-Woman rode! Hark, thrilling through the armed Line The martial accents ring, "Though mine the Woman's form--yet mine, "The Heart of England's King!"[L] Woe to the Island and the Maid! The Pope has preach'd the New Crusade,[M] His sons have caught the fiery zeal; The Monks are merry in Castile; Bold Parma on the Main; And through the deep exulting sweep The Thunder-Steeds of Spain.-- What meteor rides the sulphurous gale? The Flames have caught the giant sail! Fierce Drake is grappling prow to prow; God and St. George for Victory now! Death in the Battle and the Wind-- Carnage before and Storm behind-- Wild shrieks are heard above the hurtling roar By Orkney's rugged strands, and Erin's ruthless shore. Joy to the Island and the Maid! Pope Sextus wept the Last Crusade! His sons consumed before his zeal,-- The Monks are woeful in Castile; Your Monument the Main, The glaive and gale record your tale, Ye Thunder-Steeds of Spain! VIII. Turn from the idle Past; Its lonely ghost thou art! Yea, like a ghost, whom charms to earth detain (When, with the dawn, its kindred phantom train Glide into peaceful graves)--to dust depart Thy shadowy pageants; and the day unblest, Seems some dire curse that keeps thee from thy rest. Yet comfort, comfort to thy longing woe, Thou wistful watcher by the dreary portal; Now when most human, since most feeble, know, That in the Human struggles the Immortal. Flash'd from the steel of the descending shears, Oft sacred light illumes the parting soul; And our last glimpse along the woof of years, First reads the scheme that disinvolves the whole. Yet, then, recall the Past! Is reverence not the child of sympathy? To feel for Greatness we must hear it sigh: On mortal brows those halos longest last Which blend for one the rays that verge from all. Few reign, few triumph; millions love and grieve: Of grief and love let some high memory leave One mute appeal to life, upon the stone-- That tomb from Time shall votive rites receive When History doubts what ghost once fill'd a throne. So,--indistinct while back'd by sunlit skies-- But large and clear against the midnight pall, Thy human outline awes our human eyes. Place, place, ye meaner royalties below, For Nature's holiest--Womanhood and Woe!