Chapter XI

Can it be thought, or can the thought be borne,
That for a single hour beneath the sun
Earth shall endure, when England’s day is done?
A world without an England! Yea, but shorn
Of the divinest gem her breast hath worn,
What most she makes for--doomed thenceforth to run
Blind, lost, and calling for that treasured One,
Through star-sown space, unfathomably mourne!
Never again the liquid air to breathe
On a May morn among the Mendip Hills;
Never to watch the green Atlantic seethe
Around the Lizard, while the Severn fills;
Never to hear the quivering strings that hung
The speech of Chatham on the English tongue!

HESEPE, _10th July_