To the Queen
O loyal to the royal in thyself,And loyal to thy land, as this to thee—Bear witness, that rememberable day,When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the PrinceWho scarce had plucked his flickering life againFrom halfway down the shadow of the grave,Past with thee through thy people and their love,And London rolled one tide of joy through allHer trebled millions, and loud leagues of manAnd welcome! witness, too, the silent cry,The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime—Thunderless lightnings striking under seaFrom sunset and sunrise of all thy realm,And that true North, whereof we lately heardA strain to shame us “keep you to yourselves;So loyal is too costly! friends—your loveIs but a burthen: loose the bond, and go.”Is this the tone of empire? here the faithThat made us rulers? this, indeed, her voiceAnd meaning, whom the roar of HougoumontLeft mightiest of all peoples under heaven?What shock has fooled her since, that she should speakSo feebly? wealthier—wealthier—hour by hour!The voice of Britain, or a sinking land,Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas?There rang her voice, when the full city pealedThee and thy Prince! The loyal to their crownAre loyal to their own far sons, who loveOur ocean-empire with her boundless homesFor ever-broadening England, and her throneIn our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle,That knows not her own greatness: if she knowsAnd dreads it we are fallen. —But thou, my Queen,Not for itself, but through thy living loveFor one to whom I made it o’er his graveSacred, accept this old imperfect tale,New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul,Ideal manhood closed in real man,Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost,Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak,And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or himOf Geoffrey’s book, or him of Malleor’s, oneTouched by the adulterous finger of a timeThat hovered between war and wantonness,And crownings and dethronements: take withalThy poet’s blessing, and his trust that HeavenWill blow the tempest in the distance backFrom thine and ours: for some are scared, who mark,Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm,Waverings of every vane with every wind,And wordy trucklings to the transient hour,And fierce or careless looseners of the faith,And Softness breeding scorn of simple life,Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold,Or Labour, with a groan and not a voice,Or Art with poisonous honey stolen from France,And that which knows, but careful for itself,And that which knows not, ruling that which knowsTo its own harm: the goal of this great worldLies beyond sight: yet—if our slowly-grownAnd crowned Republic’s crowning common-sense,That saved her many times, not fail—their fearsAre morning shadows huger than the shapesThat cast them, not those gloomier which foregoThe darkness of that battle in the West,Where all of high and holy dies away.