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| WHITE England shouldering from the sea, | |
| Green England in thy rainy veil, | |
| Old island-nest of Liberty | |
| And loveliest Song, all hail! | |
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| God guard thee long from scath and grief! | 5 |
| Not any wish of ours would mar | |
| One richly glooming ivy-leaf, | |
| One rosy daisy-star. | |
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| What! phantoms are we, spectre-thin, | |
| Unfathered, out of nothing born? | 10 |
| Did Being in this world begin | |
| With blaze of yestermorn? | |
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| Nay! sacred Life, a scarlet thread, | |
| Through lost unnumbered lives has run; | |
| No strength can tear us from the dead; | 15 |
| The sire is in the son. | |
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| Nay! through the years God’s purpose glides, | |
| And links in sequence deed with deed; | |
| Hoar Time along his chaplet slides | |
| Bead after jewel-bead. | 20 |
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| O brother, breathing English air! | |
| If both be just, if both be free, | |
| A lordlier heritage we share | |
| Than any earth can be: | |
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| If hearts be high, if hands be pure, | 25 |
| A bond unseen shall bind us still,— | |
| The only bond that can endure, | |
| Being welded with God’s will! | |
| |
| A bond unseen! and yet God speed | |
| The apparent sign, when He finds good; | 30 |
| When in His sight it types indeed | |
| That inward brotherhood. | |
| |
| For not the rose-and-emerald bow | |
| Can bid the battling storm to cease, | |
| But leaps at last, that all may know | 35 |
| The sign, not source, of peace. | |
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| Oh, what shall shameful peace avail, | |
| If east or west, if there or here, | |
| Men sprung of ancient England fail | |
| To hold their birthright dear? | 40 |
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| If west or east, if here or there, | |
| Brute Mammon sit in Freedom’s place, | |
| And judge a wailing world’s despair | |
| With hard, averted face? | |
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| O great Co-heir, whose lot is cast | 45 |
| Beside the hearthstone loved of yore! | |
| Inherit with us that best Past | |
| That lives for evermore! | |
| |
| Inherit with us! Lo, the days | |
| Are evil; who may know the end? | 50 |
| Strike hands, and dare the darkening ways, | |
| Twin strengths, with God to friend! | |
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