A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems Part 12

As from fraud and force their power had fast beginning, So by righteousness and peace it may not stand, But by craft of state and nets of secret spinning, Words that weave and unweave wiles like ropes of sand Form, custom, and gold, and laws grown h.o.a.ry, And strong tradition that guards the gate: To these, O people, to these give glory, That your name among nations may be great.

IX.

How long--for haply not now much longer-- Shall fear put faith in a faithless creed, And shapes and shadows of truths be stronger In strong men's eyes than the truth indeed?

If freedom be not a word that dies when spoken, If justice be not a dream whence men must wake, How shall not the bonds of the thraldom of old be broken, And right put might in the hands of them that break?

For clear as a tocsin from the steeple Is the cry gone forth along the land, Take heed, ye unwise among the people: O ye fools, when will ye understand?

_A BALLAD AT PARTING._

Sea to sea that clasps and fosters England, uttering ever-more Song eterne and praise immortal of the indomitable sh.o.r.e, Lifts aloud her constant heart up, south to north and east to west, Here in speech that shames all music, there in thunder-throated roar, Chiming concord out of discord, waking rapture out of rest.

All her ways are lovely, all her works and symbols are divine, Yet shall man love best what first bade leap his heart and bend his knee; Yet where first his whole soul wors.h.i.+pped shall his soul set up her shrine: Nor may love not know the lovelier, fair as both beheld may be, Here the limitless north-eastern, there the strait south-western sea.

Though their chant bear all one burden, as ere man was born it bore; Though the burden be diviner than the songs all souls adore; Yet may love not choose but choose between them which to love the best.

Me the sea my nursing-mother, me the Channel green and h.o.a.r, Holds at heart more fast than all things, bares for me the goodlier breast, Lifts for me the lordlier love-song, bids for me more sunlight s.h.i.+ne, Sounds for me the stormier trumpet of the sweeter strain to me.

So the broad pale Thames is loved not like the tawny springs of Tyne: Choice is clear between them for the soul whose vision holds in fee Here the limitless north-eastern, there the strait south-western sea.

Choice is clear, but dear is either; nor has either not in store Many a likeness, many a written sign of spirit-searching lore, Whence the soul takes fire of sweet remembrance, magnified and blest.

Thought of songs whose flame-winged feet have trod the unfooted water-floor When the lord of all the living lords of souls bade speed their quest, Soft live sound like children's babble down the rippling sand's incline, Or the lovely song that loves them, hailed with thankful prayer and plea; These are parcels of the harvest here whose gathered sheaves are mine, Garnered now, but sown and reaped where winds make wild with wrath or glee Here the limitless north-eastern, there the strait south-western sea.

Song, thy name is freedom, seeing thy strength was born of breeze and brine.

Fare now forth and fear no fortune; such a seal is set on thee.

Joy begat and memory bare thee, seeing in spirit a two-fold sign, Even the sign of those thy fosters, each as thou from all time free, Here the limitless north-eastern, there the strait south-western sea.