A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled— Some sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, A kingdom topples over with a shriek In mock heroics stranger than our own; No graver than a schoolboys' barring out; As some of theirs-God bless the narrow seas! 'Have patience,' I replied, 'ourselves are full Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams Are but the needful preludes of the truth: For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, Among six boys, head under head, and look'd No little lily-handed Baronet he, A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, A raiser of huge melons and of pine, Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn; Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those That stood the nearest-now address'd to speechWho spoke few words and pithy, such as closed Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year To follow a shout rose again, and made : The long line of the approaching rookery swerve From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang Beyond the bourn of sunset; O, a shout More joyful than the city-roar that hails Premier or king! Why should not these great Sirs Give up their parks some dozen times a year To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried, I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we sat But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, Perchance upon the future man: the walls Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, And gradually the powers of the night, That range above the region of the wind, Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. Last little Lilia, rising quietly, Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. THE END. LONDON: BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. |