From a soil that is fertile in manhood’s men, and scatter’d the foes,
And set in their place the bright pillars of Order, Liberty’s shrine,
O’er the land far-seen, as o’er Athens the home of Athena divine. 
—­So the land had rest:—­and the cloud of that heart-sore struggle and
pain
Sped from her ancient hills, and peace shone o’er her again,
Sunlike chasing the plagues wherewith the land was defiled: 
And the leprosy fled, and her flesh came again, as the flesh of a child. 
For lo! the crown’d Statesman of Law, Justinian himself of his realm,
Edward, since Alfred our wisest of all who have watch’d by the helm! 
He who yet preaches in silence his life-word, the light of his way,
From his marble unadorn’d chest, in the heart of the West Minster gray,
Keep thy Faith . . .  In the great town-twilight, this city of gloom,
—­O how unlike that blithe London he look’d on!—­I look on his tomb,
In the circle of kings, round the shrine, where the air is heavy with
fame,
Dust of our moulder’d chieftains, and splendour shrunk to a name. 
Silent synod august, ye that tried the delight and the pain,
Trials and snares of a throne, was the legend written in vain? 
Speak, for ye know, crown’d shadows! who down each narrow and strait
As ye might, once guided,—­a perilous passage,—­the keel of the State,
Fourth Henry, fourth Edward, Elizabeth, Charles,—­now ye rest from your
toil,
Was it best, when by truth and compass ye steer’d, or by statecraft and
guile? 
Or is it so hard, that steering of States, that as men who throw in
With party their life, honour soils his own ermine, a lie is no sin? . . . 
—­Not so, great Edward, with thee,—­not so!—­For he learn’d in his youth
The step straightforward and sure, the proud, bright bearing of truth:—­
Arm’d against Simon at Evesham, yet not less, striking for Law,—­
Ages of temperate freedom, a vision of order, he saw!—­
—­Vision of opulent years, a murmur of welfare and peace: 
Orchard golden-globed, plain waving in golden increase;
Hopfields fairer than vineyards, green laughing tendrils and bine;
Woodland misty in sunlight, and meadow sunny with kine;—­
Havens of heaving blue, where the keels of Guienne and the Hanse
Jostle and creak by the quay, and the mast goes up like a lance,
Gay with the pennons of peace, and, blazon’d with Adria’s dyes,
Purple and orange, the sails like a sunset burn in the skies. 
Bloodless conquests of commerce, that nation with nation unite! 
Hand clasp’d frankly in hand, not steel-clad buffets in fight: 
On the deck strange accents and shouting; rough furcowl’d men of the
north,
Genoa’s brown-neck’d sons, and whom swarthy Smyrna sends forth: 
Freights of the south; drugs potent o’er death from the basilisk won,
Odorous Phoenix-nest, and spice of a sunnier sun:—­
Butts of Malvasian nectar, Messene’s vintage