Where’er in world-wide skies
   The Lion-Banner burns,
   A common impulse turns
   All hearts to where he lies:—­
For as a babe the heir of that great throne
   Is weak and motionless;
   And they feel the deep distress
   On wife and mother press,
      As ’twere their own.

   O! not the thought of race
   From Asian Odin drawn
   In History’s mythic dawn,
   Nor what we downward trace,
—­Plantagenet, York, Edward, Elizabeth,—­
   Heroic names approved,—­
   The blood of the people moved;
   But that, ’mongst those he loved,
      He fought with death.

   And if the Reason said
   ’’Gainst Nature’s law and death
   Prayer is but idle breath,’—­
   Yet Faith was undismayed,
Arm’d with the deeper insight of the heart:—­
   Nor can the wisest say
   What other laws may sway
   The world’s apparent way,
      Known but in part.

   Nor knew we on that life
   What burdens may be cast;
   What issues wide and vast
   Dependent on that strife:—­
This only:—­’Twas the son of those we loved! 
   That in his Mother’s hand
   Peace set her golden wand;
   ’Mid heaving realms, one land
      Law-ruled, unmoved.

   —­He fought, and we with him! 
   And other Powers were by,
   Courage, and Science high,
   Grappling the spectre grim
On the battle-field of quiet Sandringham: 
   And force of perfect Love,
   And the will of One above,
   Chased Death’s dark squadrons off,
      And overcame.

   —­O soul, to life restored
   And love, and wider aim
   Than private care can claim,
   —­And from Death’s unsheath’d sword! 
By suffering and by safety dearer made:—­
   O may the life new-found
   Through life be wisdom-crown’d,—­
   Till in the common ground
      Thou too art laid!

A DORSET IDYL

HARCOMBE NEAR LYME

September:  1878

Before me with one happy heave
Of golden green the hillside curves,
Where slowly, smoothly, rounding swerves
The shadow of each perfect tree,
By slanting shafts of eve
Flame-fringed and bathed in pale transparency.

And that long ridge that crowns the hill
Stands fir-dark ’gainst the falling rays;
Above, a waft of pearly haze
Lies on the sapphire field of air,
So radiant and so still
As though a star-cloud took its station there.

Up wold and wild the valley goes,
’Mid heath and mounded slopes of oak,
And light ash-thicket, where the smoke
Wreathes high in evening’s air serene,
Floating in white repose
O’er the blue reek of cottage-hearths unseen.

Another landscape at my feet
Unfolds its nearer grace the while,
Where gorses gleam with golden smile;
Where Inula lifts a russet head
The shepherd’s spikenard sweet;
And closing Centaury points her rosy red.