XXVI

1.

My life has crept so long on a broken wing

Thro' cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear,

That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing:

My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year

When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs,

And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer

And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns

Over Orion's grave low down in the west,

That like a silent lightning under the stars

She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band of the blest,

And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars—

'And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have rest,

Knowing I tarry for thee,' and pointed to Mars

As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast.

2.

And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear delight

To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes so fair,

That had been in a weary world my one thing bright;

And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'd my despair

When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right,

That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease,

The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height,

Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionaire:

No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace

Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note,

And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase,

Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore,

And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat

Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more.

3.

And as months ran on and rumour of battle grew,

'It is time, it is time, O passionate heart,' said I

(For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and true),

'It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye,

That old hysterical mock-disease should die.'

And I stood on a giant deck and mix'd my breath

With a loyal people shouting a battle cry,

Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly

Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death.

4.

Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims

Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold,

And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and

Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told;

And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd!,

Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep

For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims,

Yet God's just doom shall be wreak'd on a giant liar;

And many a darkness into the light shall leap,

And shine in the sudden making of splendid names,

And noble thought be freer under the sun,

And the heart of a people beat with one desire;

For the long, long canker of peace is over and done

And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep,

And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames

The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.