VI

THE TRUE PATRIOTISM

The ever-lustrous name of patriot
To no man be denied because he saw
Where in his country’s wholeness lay the flaw,
Where, on her whiteness, the unseemly blot. 
England! thy loyal sons condemn thee.—­What! 
Shall we be meek who from thine own breasts draw
Our fierceness?  Not ev’n thou shalt overawe
Us thy proud children nowise basely got. 
Be this the measure of our loyalty—­
To feel thee noble and weep thy lapse the more. 
This truth by thy true servants is confess’d—­
Thy sins, who love thee most, do most deplore. 
Know thou thy faithful!  Best they honour thee
Who honour in thee only what is best.

VII

RESTORED ALLEGIANCE

Dark is thy trespass, deep be thy remorse,
O England!  Fittingly thine own feet bleed,
Submissive to the purblind guides that lead
Thy weary steps along this rugged course. 
Yet ... when I glance abroad, and track the source
More selfish far, of other nations’ deed,
And mark their tortuous craft, their jealous greed,
Their serpent-wisdom or mere soulless force,
Homeward returns my vagrant fealty,
Crying, “O England, shouldst thou one day fall,
Shatter’d in ruins by some Titan foe,
Justice were thenceforth weaker throughout all
The world, and Truth less passionately free,
And God the poorer for thine overthrow.”

VIII

THE POLITICAL LUMINARY

A skilful leech, so long as we were whole: 
Who scann’d the nation’s every outward part,
But ah! misheard the beating of its heart. 
Sire of huge sorrows, yet erect of soul. 
Swift rider with calamity for goal,
Who, overtasking his equestrian art,
Unstall’d a steed full willing for the start,
But wondrous hard to curb or to control. 
Sometimes we thought he led the people forth: 
Anon he seemed to follow where they flew;
Lord of the golden tongue and smiting eyes;
Great out of season, and untimely wise: 
A man whose virtue, genius, grandeur, worth
Wrought deadlier ill than ages can undo.

IX

FOREIGN MENACE

I marvel that this land, whereof I claim
The glory of sonship—­for it was erewhile
A glory to be sprung of Britain’s isle,
Though now it well-nigh more resembles shame—­
I marvel that this land with heart so tame
Can brook the northern insolence and guile. 
But most it angers me, to think how vile
Art thou, how base, from whom the insult came,
Unwieldly laggard, many an age behind
Thy sister Powers, in brain and conscience both;
In recognition of man’s widening mind
And flexile adaptation to its growth: 
Brute bulk, that bearest on thy back, half loth,
One wretched man, most pitied of mankind.