20

I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, And drank, and loyally drank to him?

Nor knew we well what pleased us most;

Not the clipt palm of which they boast,

But distant color, happy hamlet, A moulder'd citadel on the coast,

Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen A light amid its olives green;

Or olive-hoary cape in ocean; Or rosy blossom in hot ravine,

Where oleanders flush'd the bed Of silent torrents, gravel-spread;

30

And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten Of ice, far up on a mountain head.

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, Those niched shapes of noble mould,

A princely people's awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old. 40

At Florence too what golden hours, In those long galleries, were ours;

From Como, when the light was gray,
And in my head, for half the day,
The rich Virgilian rustic measure
Of 'Lari Maxume,' all the way,

ike ballad-burthen music, kept, is on the Lariano crept

To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept;

r hardly slept, but watch'd awake 81 cypress in the moonlight shake,

COME, when no graver cares employ, Godfather, come and see your boy;

Your presence will be sun in win ter,

Making the little one leap for joy.

For, being of that honest few
Who give the Fiend himself his due,
Should eighty thousand college-

councils

III

ead out the pageant: sad and slow,

sfits an universal woe,

et the long, long procession go.

There he shall rest for ever

Among the wise and the bold. Let the bell be toll'd,

And a reverent people behold

grow,

And worthy to be laid by thee;
For this is England's greatest son,
He that gain'd a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun;
This is he that far away
Against the myriads of Assaye
Clash'd with his fiery few and won; 100
And underneath another sun,
Warring on a later day,
Round affrighted Lisbon drew
The treble works, the vast designs
Of his labor'd rampart-lines,
Where he greatly stood at bay,
Whence he issued forth anew,
And ever great and greater grew,
Beating from the wasted vines
Back to France her banded swarms, 110
Back to France with countless blows,
Till o'er the hills her eagles flew
Beyond the Pyrenean pines,
Follow'd up in valley and glen
With blare of bugle, clamor of men,
Roll of cannon and clash of arms,
And England pouring on her foes.
Such a war had such a close.
Again their ravening eagle rose
In anger, wheel'd on Europe-shadow-
ing wings,

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A people's voice! we are a people yet. Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget,

Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers,

Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set

His Briton in blown seas and storming showers,

We have a voice with which to pay the debt

Of boundless love and reverence and regret

To those great men who fought, and kept it ours.

And keep it ours, O God, from brute control!

O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul

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