A space his alien eye surveyed the pride Of meditated pomp, as one that much Disdained the sight, methought; then at a touch, He turned the heel, and sought with shadowy stride His station in the dim, Where the sole-thoughted Dante waited him. What throngs illustrious next, of Art and Prose, Too long to tell; but other music rose When came the sabre's children: they who led The iron-throated harmonies of war, The march resounding of the armèd line, And measured movement of battalia: Accompanied their tread No harps, no pipes of soft Arcadia, But--borne to me afar-- The tramp of squadrons, and the bursting mine, The shock of steel, the volleying rifle-crack, And echoes out of ancient battles dead. So Cawnpore unto Alma thundered back, And Delhi's cannon roared to Gujerat: Carnage through all those iron vents gave out Her thousand-mouthèd shout. As balefire answering balefire is unfurled, From mountain-peaks, to tell the foe's approaches, So ran that battle-clangour round the world, From famous field to field So that reverberated war was tossed; And--in the distance lost-- Across the plains of France and hills of Spain It swelled once more to birth, And broke on me again, The voice of England's glories girdling in the earth. It caught like fire the main, Where rending planks were heard, and broadsides pealed, That shook were all the seas, Which feared, and thought on Nelson. For with them That struck the Russ, that brake the Mutineer, And smote the stiff Sikh to his knee,--with these Came they that kept our England's sea-swept hem, And held afar from her the foreign fear. After them came They who pushed back the ocean of the Unknown, And fenced some strand of knowledge for our own Against the outgoing sea Of ebbing mystery; And on their banner "Science" blazoned shone. The rear were they that wore the statesman's fame, From Melbourne, to The arcane face of the much-wrinkled Jew. Lo, in this day we keep the yesterdays, And those great dead of the Victorian line. 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.