Each from its little croft the homesteads peep,
   Green apple-garths around, and hedgeless meads,
   Smooth-shaven lawns of ever-shifting sheep,
   Wolds where his dappled crew the swineherd feeds:—­
   Pale gold round pure pale foreheads, and their eyes
   More dewy blue than speedwell by the brook
      When Spring’s fresh current flies,
   The free fair maids come barefoot to the fount,
Or poppy-crown’d with fire, the car of harvest mount.

11

   On the salt stream that rings us, ness and bay,
   The nation’s old sea-soul beats blithe and strong;
   The black foam-breasters taste Biscayan spray,
   And where ’neath Polar dawns the narwhals throng:—­
   Free hands, free hearts, for labour and for glee,
   Or village-moot, when thane with churl unites
      Beneath the sacred tree;
   While wisdom tempers force, and bravery leads,
Till spears beat Aye! on shields, and words at once are deeds.

12

   Again with life the ruin’d cities smile,
   Again from mother-Rome their sacred fire
   Knowledge and Faith rekindle through the isle,
   Nigh quench’d by barbarous war and heathen ire:—­
   —­No more on Balder’s grave let Anglia weep
   When winter storms entomb the golden year
      Sunk in Adonis-sleep;
   Another God has risen, and not in vain! 
The Woden-ash is low, the Cross asserts her reign.

13

   —­Land of the most law-loving,—­the most free! 
   My dear, dear England! sweet and green as now
   The flower-illumined garden of the sea,
   And Nature least impair’d by axe and plough! 
   A laughing land!—­Thou seest not in the north
   How the black Dane and vulture Norseman wait
      The sign of coming forth,
   The foul Landeyda flap its raven plume,
And all the realms once more eclipsed in pagan gloom!

14

   —­O race, of many races well compact! 
   As some rich stream that runs in silver down
   From the White Mount:—­his baby steps untrack’d
   Where clouds and emerald cliffs of crystal frown;
   Now, alien founts bring tributary flood,
   Or kindred waters blend their native hue,
      Some darkening as with blood;
   These fraught with iron strength and freshening brine,
And these with lustral waves, to sweeten and refine.

15

   Now calm as strong, and clear as summer air,
   Blessing and blest of earth and sky, he glides: 
   Now on some rock-ridge rends his bosom fair,
   And foams with cloudy wrath and hissing tides: 
   Then with full flood of level-gliding force,
   His discord-blended melody murmurs low
      Down the long seaward course:—­
   So through Time’s mead, great River, greatly glide: 
Whither, thou may’st not know:—­but He, who knows, will guide.