Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Helen GrayCone

1352 Fair England

WHITE England shouldering from the sea,

Green England in thy rainy veil,

Old island-nest of Liberty

And loveliest Song, all hail!

God guard thee long from scath and grief!

Not any wish of ours would mar

One richly glooming ivy-leaf,

One rosy daisy-star.

What! phantoms are we, spectre-thin,

Unfathered, out of nothing born?

Did Being in this world begin

With blaze of yestermorn?

Nay! sacred Life, a scarlet thread,

Through lost unnumbered lives has run;

No strength can tear us from the dead;

The sire is in the son.

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.

O brother, breathing English air!

If both be just, if both be free,

A lordlier heritage we share

Than any earth can be:

If hearts be high, if hands be pure,

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;

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

The sign, not source, of peace.

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?

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?

O great Co-heir, whose lot is cast

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?

Strike hands, and dare the darkening ways,

Twin strengths, with God to friend!