Two Nations | Page 8

hoar kings; But though her thrones
and towers of nations fall, Death has no part in all; In the air, nor in the
imperishable sea, Nor heaven, nor truth, nor thee. Yea, let all
sceptre-stricken nations lie, But live thou though they die; Let their
flags fade as flowers that storm can mar, But thine be like a star; Let
England's, if it float not for men free, Fall, and forget the sea; Let
France's, if it shadow a hateful head, Drop as a leaf drops dead; Thine
let what storm soever smite the rest Smite as it seems him best; Thine
let the wind that can, by sea or land, Wrest from thy banner-hand. Die
they in whom dies freedom, die and cease, Though the world weep for
these; Live thou and love and lift when these lie dead The green and
white and red.
§ O our Republic that shalt bind in bands The kingdomless far lands
And link the chainless ages; thou that wast With England ere she past
Among the faded nations, and shalt be Again, when sea to sea Calls
through the wind and light of morning time, And throneless clime to
clime Makes antiphonal answer; thou that art Where one man's perfect
heart Burns, one man's brow is brightened for thy sake, Thine, strong to
make or break; O fair Republic hallowing with stretched hands The
limitless free lands, When all men's heads for love, not fear, bow down
To thy sole royal crown, As thou to freedom; when man's life smells
sweet, And at thy bright swift feet A bloodless and a bondless world is
laid; Then, when thy men are made, Let these indeed as we in dreams
behold One chosen of all thy fold, One of all fair things fairest, one
exalt Above all fear or fault, One unforgetful of unhappier men And us
who loved her then; With eyes that outlook suns and dream on graves;
With voice like quiring waves; With heart the holier for their memories'
sake Who slept that she might wake; With breast the sweeter for that
sweet blood lost, And all the milkless cost; Lady of earth, whose large
equality Bends but to her and thee; Equal with heaven, and infinite of
years, And splendid from quenched tears; Strong with old strength of
great things fallen and fled, Diviner for her dead; Chaste of all stains
and perfect from all scars, Above all storms and stars, All winds that
blow through time, all waves that foam, Our Capitolian Rome.

1867.

ODE ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
To: VICTOR HUGO
(Greek: ailenon ailenon eipe, to d' eu nikato)

STROPHE 1
With songs and crying and sounds of acclamations, Lo, the flame risen,
the fire that falls in showers! Hark; for the word is out among the
nations: Look; for the light is up upon the hours: O fears, O shames, O
many tribulations, Yours were all yesterdays, but this day ours. Strong
were your bonds linked fast with lamentations, With groans and tears
built into walls and towers; Strong were your works and wonders of
high stations, Your forts blood-based, and rampires of your powers: Lo
now the last of divers desolations, The hand of time, that gathers hosts
like flowers; Time, that fills up and pours out generations; Time, at
whose breath confounded empire cowers.

STROPHE 2
What are these moving in the dawn's red gloom? What is she waited on
by dread and doom, Ill ministers of morning, bondmen born of night? If
that head veiled and bowed be morning's head, If she come walking
between doom and dread, Who shall rise up with song and dance before
her sight?
Are not the night's dead heaped about her feet? Is not death swollen,
and slaughter full of meat? What, is their feast a bride-feast, where men
sing and dance? A bitter, a bitter bride-song and a shrill Should the
house raise that such bride-followers fill, Wherein defeat weds ruin,
and takes for bride-bed France.
For nineteen years deep shame and sore desire Fed from men's hearts
with hungering fangs of fire, And hope fell sick with famine for the
food of change. Now is change come, but bringing funeral urns; Now is
day nigh, but the dawn blinds and burns; Now time long dumb hath
language, but the tongue is strange.
We that have seen her not our whole lives long, We to whose ears her
dirge was cradle-song, The dirge men sang who laid in earth her living

head, Is it by such light that we live to see Rise, with rent hair and
raiment, Liberty? Does her grave open only to restore her dead?
Ah, was it this we looked for, looked and prayed, This hour that treads
upon