X

HOME-ROOTEDNESS

I cannot boast myself cosmopolite;
I own to “insularity,” although
’Tis fall’n from fashion, as full well I know. 
For somehow, being a plain and simple wight,
I am skin-deep a child of the new light,
But chiefly am mere Englishman below,
Of island-fostering; and can hate a foe,
And trust my kin before the Muscovite. 
Whom shall I trust if not my kin?  And whom
Account so near in natural bonds as these
Born of my mother England’s mighty womb,
Nursed on my mother England’s mighty knees,
And lull’d as I was lull’d in glory and gloom
With cradle-song of her protecting seas?

XI

OUR EASTERN TREASURE

In cobwebb’d corners dusty and dim I hear
A thin voice pipingly revived of late,
Which saith our India is a cumbrous weight,
An idle decoration, bought too dear. 
The wiser world contemns not gorgeous gear;
Just pride is no mean factor in a State;
The sense of greatness keeps a nation great;
And mighty they who mighty can appear. 
It may be that if hands of greed could steal
From England’s grasp the envied orient prize,
This tide of gold would flood her still as now: 
But were she the same England, made to feel
A brightness gone from out those starry eyes,
A splendour from that constellated brow?

XII

REPORTED CONCESSIONS

So we must palter, falter, cringe, and shrink,
And when the bully threatens, crouch or fly.—­
There are who tell me with a shuddering eye
That war’s red cup is Satan’s chosen drink. 
Who shall gainsay them?  Verily I do think
War is as hateful almost, and well-nigh
As ghastly, as this terrible Peace whereby
We halt for ever on the crater’s brink
And feed the wind with phrases, while we know
There gapes at hand the infernal precipice
O’er which a gossamer bridge of words we throw,
Yet cannot choose but hear from the abyss
The sulphurous gloom’s unfathomable hiss
And simmering lava’s subterranean flow.

XIII

NIGHTMARE

(Written during apparent imminence of war)

In a false dream I saw the Foe prevail. 
The war was ended; the last smoke had rolled
Away:  and we, erewhile the strong and bold,
Stood broken, humbled, withered, weak and pale,
And moan’d, “Our greatness is become a tale
To tell our children’s babes when we are old. 
They shall put by their playthings to be told
How England once, before the years of bale,
Throned above trembling, puissant, grandiose, calm,
Held Asia’s richest jewel in her palm;
And with unnumbered isles barbaric, she
The broad hem of her glistering robe impearl’d;
Then, when she wound her arms about the world,
And had for vassal the obsequious sea.”