High climbs June’s wild rose,
     Her bush all blooms in a swarm;
     And swift from the bud she blows,
     In a day when the wooer is warm;
     Frank to receive and give,
     Her bosom is open to bee and sun: 
     Pride she has none,
     Nor shame she knows;
     Happy to live.

     Unlike those of the garden nigh,
     Her queenly sisters enthroned by art;
     Loosening petals one by one
     To the fiery Passion’s dart
     Superbly shy. 
     For them in some glory of hair,
     Or nest of the heaving mounds to lie,
     Or path of the bride bestrew. 
     Ever are they the theme for song. 
     But nought of that is her share. 
     Hardly from wayfarers tramping along,
     A glance they care not to renew.

     And she at a word of the claims of kin
     Shrinks to the level of roads and meads: 
     She is only a plain princess of the weeds,
     As an outcast witless of sin: 
     Much disregarded, save by the few
     Who love her, that has not a spot of deceit,
     No promise of sweet beyond sweet,
     Often descending to sour. 
     On any fair breast she would die in an hour. 
     Praises she scarce could bear,
     Were any wild poet to praise. 
     Her aim is to rise into light and air. 
     One of the darlings of Earth, no more,
     And little it seems in the dusty ways,
     Unless to the grasses nodding beneath;
     The bird clapping wings to soar,
     The clouds of an evetide’s wreath.

     The call

     Under what spell are we debased
     By fears for our inviolate Isle,
     Whose record is of dangers faced
     And flung to heel with even smile? 
     Is it a vaster force, a subtler guile?

     They say Exercitus designs
     To match the famed Salsipotent
     Where on her sceptre she reclines;
     Awake:  but were a slumber sent
     By guilty gods, more fell his foul intent.

     The subtler web, the vaster foe,
     Well may we meet when drilled for deeds: 
     But in these days of wealth at flow,
     A word of breezy warning breeds
     The pained responses seen in lakeside reeds.

     We fain would stand contemplative,
     All innocent as meadow grass;
     In human goodness fain believe,
     Believe a cloud is formed to pass;
     Its shadows chase with draughts of hippocras.

     Others have gone; the way they went
     Sweet sunny now, and safe our nest. 
     Humanity, enlightenment,
     Against the warning hum protest: 
     Let the world hear that we know what is best.

     So do the beatific speak;
     Yet have they ears, and eyes as well;
     And if not with a paler cheek,
     They feel the shivers in them dwell,
     That something of a dubious future tell.