Stern Famine guards the solitary coast,
And Winter barricades the realms of Frost ;
He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay;
Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day :
The vanquish'd hero leaves his broken bands,
And shows his miseries in distant lands;
Condemn'd a needy supplicant to wait,
While ladies interpose and slaves debate.
But did not Chance at length her error mend?
Did no subverted empire mark his end?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound,
Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;

He left the name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

SAMUEL JOHNSON (The Vanity of Human Wishes).

WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE

WHAT constitutes a State?

Not high-raised battlement or labor'd mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;

Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd;
Not bays and broad-arm'd ports,

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starr'd and spangled courts,

Where low-brow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride.
Nomen, high-minded men,

With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude,

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain;

Prevent the long-aim'd blow,

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain,

These constitute a State;

And sovereign law, that State's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend, Dissension, like a vapor sinks;

And e'en the all-dazzling Crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks;
Such was this heaven-loved isle,

Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore !

No more shall Freedom smile ?

Shall Britons languish, and be men no more ?
Since all must life resign,

Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave
'T is folly to decline,

And steal inglorious to the silent grave.

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

A CURSE ON THE TRAITOR

O FOR a tongue to curse the slave,
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might!
May life's unblessèd cup for him
Be drugg'd with treacheries to the brim,
With hopes that but allure to fly,

With joys that vanish while he sips,
Like Dead Sea fruits, that tempt the eye,
But turn to ashes on the lips.

His country's curse, his children's shame,
Outcast of virtue, peace, and fame;
May he, at last, with lips of flame
On the parch'd desert thirsting die,
While lakes, that shone in mockery nigh,
Are fading off, untouch'd, untasted,
Like the once glorious hopes he blasted!
And when from earth his spirit flies,
Just Prophet, let the damn'd one dwell
Full in the sight of Paradise,

Beholding heaven, and feeling hell!

THOMAS MOORE (Lalla Rookh).

ENGLAND

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O, raise us up, return to us again ;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

MOTHER ENGLAND

I

THERE was a rover from a western shore,
England! whose eyes the sudden tears did drown,
Beholding the white cliff and sunny down
Of thy good realm, beyond the sea's uproar.
I, for a moment, dream'd that, long before,
I had beheld them thus, when, with the frown
Of sovereignty, the victor's palm and crown
Thou from the tilting field of nations bore.
Thy prowess and thy glory dazzled first;
But when in fields I saw the tender flame
Of primroses, and full-fleeced lambs at play,
Meseem'd I at thy breast, like these, was nursed;
Then mother Mother England! - home I came
Like one who hath been all too long away!

II

As nestling at thy feet in peace I lay,
A thought awoke and restless stirr'd in me :
"My land and congeners are beyond the sea,
Theirs is the morning and the evening day.
Wilt thou give ear while this of them I say?-
'Haughty art thou, and they are bold and free,
As well befits who have descent from thee,
And who have trodden brave the forlorn way.
Children of thine, but grown to strong estate;
Nor scorn from thee would they be slow to pay,
Nor check from thee submissly would they bear;
Yet Mother England! yet their hearts are great,
And if for thee should dawn some darkest day,
At cry of thine, how proudly would they dare!
EDITH M. THOMAS.

AVE IMPERATRIX

SET in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide !

The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires which are
The torches of the lords of Night.

The yellow leopards, strain'd and lean,
The treacherous Russian knows so well,
With gaping blacken'd jaws are seen
To leap through hail of screaming shell.
The strong sea-lion of England's wars
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,
To battle with the storm that mars
The star of England's chivalry.
The brazen-throated clarion blows
Across the Pathan's reedy fen,
And the high steeps of Indian snows
Shake to the tread of armèd men.
And many an Afghan chief, who lies
Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,
Clutches his sword in fierce surmise
When on the mountain-side he sees
The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes
To tell how he hath heard afar
The measured roll of English drums
Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

For southern wind and east wind meet

Where, girt and crown'd by sword and fire,

England with bare and bloody feet

Climbs the steep road of wide empire.

O lonely Himalayan height,

Gray pillar of the Indian sky,
Where saw'st thou last in clanging fight
Our winged dogs of Victory?

The almond groves of Samarcand,
Bokhara, where red lilies blow,
And Oxus, by whose yellow sand
The grave white-turban'd merchants go;
And on from thence to Ispahan,
The gilded garden of the sun,
Whence the long dusty caravan
Brings cedar and vermilion ;
And that dread city of Cabool

Set at the mountain's scarpèd feet,
Whose marble tanks are ever full

With water for the noonday heat,

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar

A little maid Circassian

Is led, a present from the Czar

Unto some old and bearded khan,

Here have our wild war-eagles flown,
And flapp'd wide wings in fiery fight;
But the sad dove, that sits alone

In England

she hath no delight.

In vain the laughing girl will lean

To greet her love with love-lit eyes:
Down in some treacherous black ravine,
Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.
And many a moon and sun will see
The lingering wistful children wait
To climb upon their father's knee;
And in each house made desolate

Pale women who have lost their lord
Will kiss the relics of the slain

Some tarnish'd epaulette

some sword

Poor toys to soothe such anguish'd pain.

For not in quiet English fields

Are these, our brothers, laid to rest,
Where we might deck their broken shields
With all the flowers the dead love best.

For some are by the Delhi walls,
And many in the Afghan land,
And many where the Ganges falls
Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

And some in Russian waters lie,
And others in the seas which are

The portals to the East, or by

The wind-swept heights f Trafalgar.

O wandering graves! O restless sleep!
O silence of the sunless day!
O still ravine! O stormy deep!

Give up your prey! Give up your prey!
And those whose wounds are never heal'd,
Whose weary race is never won,

O Cromwell's England' must thou yield
For every inch of ground a son ?

Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crown'd head,
Change thy glad song to song of pain ;
Wind and wild wave have got thy dead,
And will not yield them back again.

Wave and wild wind and foreign shore
Possess the flower of English land
Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more,
Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.