Chapter V: Part 5

Hear ye the heart of a nation
Groan, for her saviour is gone;
Gallant and true and tender,
Child and chieftain in one?
Such another day never
England will weep for again,
When the triumph darken'd the triumph,
And the hero of heroes was slain.

TORRES VEDRAS

1810

As who, while erst the Achaians wall'd the shore, Stood Atlas-like before, A granite face against the Trojan sea Of foes who seethed and foam'd, From that stern rock refused incessantly;

So He, in his colossal lines, astride From sea to river-side, Alhandra past Aruda to the Towers, Our one true man of men Frown'd back bold France and all the Imperial powers.

For when that Eagle, towering in his might Beyond the bounds of Right, O'ercanopied Europe with his rushing wings, And all the world was prone Before him as a God, a King of Kings;

When Freedom to one isle, her ancient shrine, O'er the free favouring brine Fled, as a girl by lustful war and shame Discloister'd from her home, Barefoot, with glowing eyes, and cheeks on flame,

And call'd aloud, and bade the realm awake To arms for Freedom's sake: --Yet,--for the land had rusted long in rest, The nerves of war unstrung, Faint thoughts or rash alternate in her breast,

While purblind party-strife with venomous spite Made plausible wrong seem right,-- O then for that unselfish hero-chief Tender and true, and lost At Trafalgar,--or him, whose patriot grief

Died with the prayer for England, as he died, In vain we might have cried! But this one pillar rose, and bore the war Upon himself alone; Supreme o'er Fortune and her idle star.

For not by might but mind, by skill, not chance, He headed stubborn France From Tagus back by Douro to Garonne; And on the last, worst, field, The crown of all his hundred victories won,

World-calming Waterloo!--Then, laying by War's fearful enginery, In each state-tempest mann'd the wearying helm; E'en through life's winter-years Serving with all his strength the ungrateful realm.

O firm and foursquare mind! O solid will Fix'd, inexpugnable By crowns or censures! only bent to do The day's work in the day;-- Fame with her idiot yelp might come, or go!

O breast that dared with Nature's patience wait Till the slow wheels of Fate Struck the consummate hour; in leash the while Reining his eager bands, The prey in view,--with that foreseeing smile!

And when for blood on Salamanca ridge Morn broke, or Orthez' bridge, He read the ground, and his stern squadrons moved And placed with artist-skill, Red counters in the perilous game they loved,

Impassive, iron, he and they!--and then With eagle-keener ken Glanced through the field, the crisis-instant knew, And through the gap of war His thundering legions on their victory threw.

Not iron, he, but adamant! Diamond-strong, And diamond-clear of wrong: For truth he struck right out, whate'er befall! Above the fear of fear: Duty for duty's sake his all-in-all.

Among the many wonders of Wellington's Peninsular campaign, from Vimiera (1808) to Toulouse (1814), the magnificent unity of scheme preserved throughout is, perhaps, the most wonderful: the dramatic coherence, development, and final catastrophe of triumph. For this, however, readers must be referred to Napier's _History_; Enough here to add that one of the most decisive steps was the formation of the lines in defence of Lisbon, of which the most northerly ran from Alhandra on the Tagus by Aruda and Zibreira to Torres Vedras near the sea-coast at the mouth of the Zizandre.

_When Freedom_; the unwise and uncertain management of the campaign by the English home Government has been set forth by Napier with so much emphasis as, in some degree, to impair the reader's full conviction. Yet the amazing superiority in energy and wisdom with which Wellington towered over his contemporaries, (the field being, however, cleared by the recent deaths of Nelson and Pitt), is so patent, that this attempt to do justice to his greatness is offered with hesitation and apology.

_Orthez' Bridge_; crosses the river named Gave de Pau;--and covered Soult's forces then lying north of it.

THE SOLDIERS' BATTLE

November 5: 1854

In the solid sombre mist
And the drizzling dazzling shower
They may mass them as they list,
The gray-coat Russian power;
They are fifties 'gainst our tens, they, and more!
And from the fortress-town
In silent squadrons down
O'er the craggy mountain-crown
Unseen, they pour.

On the meagre British line
That northern ocean press'd;
But we never knew how few
Were we who held the crest!
While within the curtain-mist dark shadows loom
Making the gray more gray,
Till the volley-flames betray
With one flash the long array:
And then, the gloom.

For our narrow line too wide
On the narrow crest we stood,
And in pride we named it _Home_,
As we sign'd it with our blood.
And we held-on all the morning, and the tide
Of foes on that low dyke
Surged up, and fear'd to strike,
Or on the bayonet-spike
Flung them, and died.

It was no covert, that,
'Gainst the shrieking cannon-ball!
But the stout hearts of our men
Were the bastion and the wall:--
And their chiefs hardly needed give command;
For they tore through copse and gray
Mist that before them lay,
And each man fought, that day,
For his own hand!

Yet should we not forget
'Gainst that dun sea of foes
How Egerton bank'd his line,
Till in front a cloud uprose
From the level rifle-mouths; and they dived
With bayonet-thrust beneath;
Clench'd teeth and sharp-drawn breath,
Plunging to certain death,--
And yet survived!

Nor the gallant chief who led
Those others, how he fell;
When our men the captive guns
Set free they loved so well,
And embraced them as live things, by loss endear'd:--
Nor, when the crucial stroke
On their last asylum broke,
And e'en those hearts of oak
Might well have fear'd,--

How Stanley to the fore
The citadel rush'd to guard,
With that old Albuera cry
_Fifty-seventh_! _Die hard_!
Yet saw not how his lads clear the crest,
And, each one confronting five,
The stubborn squadrons rive,
And backward, downward, drive,--
--Death-call'd to rest!

--O proud and sad for thee!
And proud and sad for those
Who on that stern foreign field
Not seeking, found repose,
As for England dear their life they gladly shed!
Yet in death bethought them where,
Not on these hillsides bare,
But within sweet English air
Their own home-dead

In a green and sure repose
Beside God's house are laid:--
Then faced the charging foes
Unmoved, unhelp'd, unafraid:--
For they knew that God would rate each shatter'd limb
Death-torn for England's sake,
And in Christ's own mercy take
On the day when souls shall wake,
Their souls to Him!

The battle of Inkermann was mainly fought on a ridge of rock which projects from the south-eastern angle of Sebastapol: the English centre of operations being the ill-fortified line named the 'Home Ridge.' The numbers engaged in field-operations, roughly speaking, were 4,000 English against 40,000 Russians.

_The curtain-mist_; The battle began about 6 A.M. under heavy mist and drizzling rain, which lasted for several hours. Through this curtain the Russian forces coming down from the hill were seen only when near enough to darken the mist by their masses.

_Egerton_; He commanded four companies of the 77th, and charged early in the battle with brilliant success;--his men, about 250, scattering 1500 Russians.

_The gallant chief_; General Soimonoff, killed just after Egerton's charge.

_With that old Albuera cry_; Prominent in the defence of the English main base of operations, the Home Ridge, against a weighty Russian advance, was Captain Stanley, commanding the 57th. This regiment, it was said, at the battle of Albuera had been encouraged by its colonel with the words, 'Fifty-seventh, die hard':--and Stanley, having less than 400 against 2000, thought the time had come to remind his 'Die-hards' of their traditional gallantry;--after which he himself at once fell mortally wounded.

AFTER CAWNPORE

June: 1857

Fourteen, all told, no more,
Pack'd close within the door
Of that old idol-shrine:
And at them, as they stand,
And from that English band,
The leaden shower went out, and Death proclaim'd them
_Mine_!
Fourteen against an army; they, no more,
Had 'scaped Cawnpore.

With each quick volley-flash
The bullets ping and plash:
Yet, though the tropic noon
With furnace-fury broke
The sulphur-curling smoke,
Scarr'd, sear'd, thirst-silenced, hunger-faint, they stood:
And soon
A dusky wall,--death sheltering life,--uprose
Against their foes.

Behind them now is cast
The horror of the past;
The fort that was no fort,
The deep dark-heaving flood
Of foes that broke in blood
On our devoted camp, victims of fiendish sport;
From that last huddling refuge lured to fly,
--And help so nigh!

Down toward the reedy shore
That fated remnant pour,
Had Fear and Death beside;
And other spectres yet
Of darker vision flit,--
Old unforgotten wrongs, the harshness and the pride
Of that imperial race which sway'd the land
By sheer command!

O little hands that strain
A mother's hand in vain
With terror vague and vast:--
Parch'd eyes that cannot shed
One tear upon the head,
A young child's head, too bright for such fell death to blast!
Ah! sadder captive train ne'er filed to doom
Through vengeful Rome!

From Ganges' reedy shore
The death-boats they unmoor,
Stack'd high with hopeless hearts;
A slowly-drifting freight
Through the red jaws of Fate,
Death-blazing banks between, and flame-wing'd arrow-darts:--
Till down the holy stream those cargoes pour
Their flame and gore.

In feral order slow
The slaughter-barges go,
Martyrs of heathen scorn:
While, saved from flood and fire
To glut the tyrant's ire,
The quick and dead in one, from their red shambles borne,
Maiden and child, in that dark grave they throw,
Our well of woe!

Ah spot on which we gaze
Through Time's all-softening haze,
In peace, on them at peace
And taken home to God!
--O whether 'neath the sod,
Or sea, or desert sand, what care,--if that release
From this dim shadow-land, through pathways dim,
Bear us to Him!

But those fourteen, the while,
Wrapt in the present, smile
On their grim baffled foe;
Till o'er the wall he heaps
The fuel-pile, and steeps
With all that burns and blasts;--and now, perforce, they go
Hack'd down and thinn'd, beyond that temple-door
But Seven,--no more.

O Elements at strife
With this poor human life,
Stern laws of Nature fair!
By flame constrain'd to fly
The treacherous stream they try,--
And those dark Ganges waves suck down the souls they bear!--
Ah, crowning anguish! Dawn of hope in sight;
Then, final night!

And now, Four heads, no more,
Life's flotsam flung ashore,
They lie:--But not as they
Who o'er a dreadful past
The heart's-ease sigh may cast!
Too worn! too tried!--their lives but given them as a prey!
Whilst all seems now a dream, a nought of nought,
For which they fought!

--O stout Fourteen, who bled
O'erwhelm'd, not vanquished!
In those dark days of blood
How many dared, and died,
And others at their side
Fresh heroes, sprang,--a race that cannot be subdued!
--Like them who pass'd Death's vale, and lived;--the Four
Saved from Cawnpore!

The English garrison at Cawnpore, with a large number of sick, women, and children, were besieged in their hastily made and weak earthworks by Nana Sahib from June 6 to June 25, 1857. Compelled to surrender, under promise of safe convoy down the Ganges, on the 27th they were massacred by musketry from the banks; the thatch of the river-boats being also fired. The survivors were murdered and thrown into the well upon Havelock's approach on July 15.

One boat managed to escape unburnt on June 27. It was chased through the 28th and 29th, by which time the crowd on board was reduced to fourteen men, one of whom, Mowbray-Thomson, has left a narrative equally striking from its vividness and its modesty. Seven escaped from the small temple in which they defended themselves; four only finally survived to tell the story.

_A dusky wall_; 'After a little time they stood behind a rampart of black and bloody corpses, and fired, with comparative security, over this bulwark:' (Kaye: _Sepoy War_: B. V: ch. ii).

MOUNT VERNON

October 5: 1860

Before the hero's grave he stood, --A simple stone of rest, and bare To all the blessing of the air,-- And Peace came down in sunny flood From the blue haunts of heaven, and smiled Upon the household reconciled.

--A hundred years have hardly flown Since in this hermitage of the West 'Mid happy toil and happy rest, Loving and loved among his own, His days fulfill'd their fruitful round, Seeking no move than what they found.

Sweet byways of the life withdrawn! Yet here his country's voice,--the cry Of man for natural liberty,-- That great Republic in her dawn, The immeasurable Future,--broke; And to his fate the Leader woke.

Not eager, yet, the blade to bare Before the Father-country's eyes,-- --E'en if a parent's rights, unwise, With that bold Son he grudged to share, In manhood strong beyond the sea, And ripe to wed with Liberty!

--Yet O! when once the die was thrown, With what unselfish patient skill, Clear-piercing flame of changeless will, The one high heart that moved alone Sedate through the chaotic strife,-- He taught mankind the hero-life!

As when the God whom Pheidias moulds, Clothed in marmoreal calm divine, Veils all that strength 'neath beauty's line, All energy in repose enfolds;-- So He, in self-effacement great, Magnanimous to endure and wait.

O Fabius of a wider world! Master of Fate through self-control And utter stainlessness of soul! And when war's weary sign was furl'd, Prompt with both hands to welcome in The white-wing'd Peace he warr'd to win!

Then, to that so long wish'd repose! The liberal leisure of the farm, The garden joy, the wild-wood charm; Life ebbing to its perfect close Like some white altar-lamp that pales And self-consumed its light exhales.

No wrathful tempest smote its wing Against life's tender flickering flame; No tropic gloom in terror came; Slow waning as a summer-spring The soul breathed out herself, and slept, And to the end her beauty kept.

Then, as a mother's love and fears Throng round the child, unseen but felt, So by his couch his nation knelt, Loving and worshipping with her tears:-- Tears!--late amends for all that debt Due to the Liberator yet!

For though the years their golden round O'er all the lavish region roll, And realm on realm, from pole to pole, In one beneath thy stars be bound: The far-off centuries as they flow, No whiter name than this shall know!

--O larger England o'er the wave, Larger, not greater, yet!--With joy Of generous hearts ye hail'd the Boy Who bow'd before the sacred grave, With Love's fair freight across the sea Sped from the Fatherland to thee!

And Freedom on that Empire-throne Blest in his Mother's rule revered, On popular love a kingdom rear'd, And rooted in the years unknown,-- Land rich in old Experience' store And holy legacies of yore,

And youth eternal, ever-new,-- From the high heaven look'd out:--and saw This other later realm of Law, Of that old household first-born true, And lord of half a world!--and smiled Upon the nations reconciled.

The date prefixed is that of the visit which the Prince of Wales paid to the tomb of Washington: carrying home thence, as one of the most distinguished of his hosts said, 'an unwritten treaty of amity and alliance.'

Mount Vernon on the Potomac, named after the Admiral, was the family seat of Augustine, father to George Washington, and the residence of the latter from 1752. But all his early years also had been spent in that neighbourhood, in those country pursuits which formed his ideal of life: and thither, on resigning his commission as Commander-in-Chief, he retired in 1785; devoting himself to farming and gardening with all the strenuousness and devoted passion of a Roman of Vergil's type. And there (Dec. 1799) was he buried.

_Not eager_; When the ill-feeling between England and America deepened after 1765, Washington 'was less eager than some others in declaring or declaiming against the mother country;' (Mahon: _Hist_. ch. lii).

_Ripe to wed with Liberty_; See _Appendix_ G.

_And to the end_; See Petrarch's beautiful lines: _Trionfo della Morte_, cap. I.

_Due to the Liberator_; Compare the epitaph by Ennius on Scipio:

Hic est ille situs, cui nemo civi' neque hostis
Quivit pro factis reddere opis pretium.

History, it may be said with reasonable confidence, records no hero more unselfish, no one less stained with human error and frailty, than George Washington.

_The years unknown_; It is to Odin, whatever date be thereby signified, that our royal genealogy runs back.

SANDRINGHAM

1871

In the drear November gloom
And the long December night,
There were omens of affright,
And prophecies of doom;
And the golden lamp of life burn'd spectre-dim,
Till Love could hardly mark
The little sapphire spark
That only made the dark
More dark and grim.

There not around alone
Watch'd sister, brother, wife,
And she who gave him life,
White as if wrought in stone
Unheard, invisible, by the bed of death
Stood eager millions by;
And as the hour drew nigh,
Dreading to see him die,
Held their breath.

Where'er in world-wide skies
The Lion-Banner burns,
A common impulse turns
All hearts to where he lies:--
For as a babe the heir of that great throne
Is weak and motionless;
And they feel the deep distress
On wife and mother press,
As 'twere their own.

O! not the thought of race
From Asian Odin drawn
In History's mythic dawn,
Nor what we downward trace,
--Plantagenet, York, Edward, Elizabeth,--
Heroic names approved,--
The blood of the people moved;
But that, 'mongst those he loved,
He fought with death.

And if the Reason said
''Gainst Nature's law and death
Prayer is but idle breath,'--
Yet Faith was undismayed,
Arm'd with the deeper insight of the heart:--
Nor can the wisest say
What other laws may sway
The world's apparent way,
Known but in part.

Nor knew we on that life
What burdens may be cast;
What issues wide and vast
Dependent on that strife:--
This only:--'Twas the son of those we loved!
That in his Mother's hand
Peace set her golden wand;
'Mid heaving realms, one land
Law-ruled, unmoved.

--He fought, and we with him!
And other Powers were by,
Courage, and Science high,
Grappling the spectre grim
On the battle-field of quiet Sandringham:
And force of perfect Love,
And the will of One above,
Chased Death's dark squadrons off,
And overcame.

--O soul, to life restored
And love, and wider aim
Than private care can claim,
--And from Death's unsheath'd sword!
By suffering and by safety dearer made:--
O may the life new-found
Through life be wisdom-crown'd,--
Till in the common ground
Thou too art laid!

A DORSET IDYL

_HARCOMBE NEAR LYME_

September: 1878

Before me with one happy heave
Of golden green the hillside curves,
Where slowly, smoothly, rounding swerves
The shadow of each perfect tree,
By slanting shafts of eve
Flame-fringed and bathed in pale transparency.

And that long ridge that crowns the hill
Stands fir-dark 'gainst the falling rays;
Above, a waft of pearly haze
Lies on the sapphire field of air,
So radiant and so still
As though a star-cloud took its station there.

Up wold and wild the valley goes,
'Mid heath and mounded slopes of oak,
And light ash-thicket, where the smoke
Wreathes high in evening's air serene,
Floating in white repose
O'er the blue reek of cottage-hearths unseen.

Another landscape at my feet
Unfolds its nearer grace the while,
Where gorses gleam with golden smile;
Where Inula lifts a russet head
The shepherd's spikenard sweet;
And closing Centaury points her rosy red.

One light cicada's simmering cry,
Survivor of the summer heat,
Chimes faint; the robin, shrill and sweet,
Pipes from green holly; whilst from far
The rookery croaks reply,
Hoarse, deep, as veterans readying for war.

--Grief on a happier future dwells;
The happy present haunts the past;
And those old minstrels who outlast
Our looser-textured webs of song,
Nursed in Hellenic dells,
Sicilian, or Italian, hither throng.

Why care if Turk and Tartar fume,
Barbarian 'gainst barbarian set,
Or how our politic prophets fret,
When on this tapestry-thyme and heath,
Fresh work of Nature's loom,
Thus, thus, we can diffuse ourselves, and breathe

Autumnal sparkling freshness?--while
The page by some bless'd miracle saved
When Goth and Frank 'gainst Hellas raved.
Paints how the wanderer-chief divine,
Snatch'd from Circaean guile,
Led by Nausicaa past Athene's shrine,

In that delicious garden sate
Where summer link'd to summer glows,
Grapes ever ripe, and rose on rose;
And all the wonders of thy tale
--O greatest of the great--
Whose splendour ne'er can fade, nor beauty fail!

Or by the city of God above
In rose-red meadows, where the day
Eternal burns, the bless'd ones stray;
The harp lets loose its silver showers
From the dark incense-grove;
And happiness blooms forth with all her flowers.

O Theban strain,--remote and pure,
Voice of the higher soul, that shames
Our downward, dry, material aims,
The bestial creed of earth-to-earth,--
Owning with insight sure
The signs that speak of Man's celestial birth!

Or white Colonos here through green
Green Dorset winds his holy vale,
Where the divine deep nightingale
Heaps note on note and love on love,
In ivy thick unseen,
While goddesses with Dionysos rove.

Another music then we hear,
A cry from the Sicilian dell,
'Here 'mid sweet grapes and laurel dwell;
Slips by from wood-girt Aetna's dome
Snow-cold the stream and clear:--
Hither to me, come, Galataea, come!'

--Voices and dreams long fled and gone!
And other echoes make reply,
The low Maenalian melody
''Twas in our garth, a twelve-year child,
I saw thee, little one,
Pick the red fruit that to thy fancy smiled,

'Thee and thy mother: I, your guide:'--
O sweet magician! Happy heart!
Content with that unrivall'd art,--
The soul of grace in music shrined,--
And notes of modest pride,
To sing the life he loved to all mankind!

There, shading pine and torrent-song
Breathe midday slumber, sudden, sweet;
Deep meadows woo the wayward feet;
In giant elm the ring-doves moan;
There, peace secure from wrong,
The life that keeps its promise, there, alone!

--O loftier than the wordy strife
That floats o'er capitals; the chase
Of florid pleasure; the blind race
Of gold for gold by gamblers run,
This fair Vergilian life,
Where heaven and we and nature are at one!

On that deep soil great Rome was sown;
Our England her foundations laid:--
Hence, while the nations, change-dismay'd,
To tyrant or to quack repair,
A healthier heart we own,
And the plant Man grows stronger than elsewhere.

Should changeful commerce shun the shore,
And newer, mightier races meet
To push us from our empire-seat,
England will round her call her own,
And as in days of yore
The sea-girt Isle be Freedom's central throne.

Freedom, fair daughter-wife of Law;
One bright face on the future cast,
One reverent fix'd upon the past,
And that for Hope, for Wisdom this:--
While counsels wild and raw
Fly those keen eyes, and leave the land to bliss:--

Dear land, where new is one with old:
Land of green hillside and of plain,
Gray tower and grange and tree-fringed lane,
Red crag and silver streamlet sweet,
Wild wood and ruin bold,
And this repose of beauty at my feet:--

Fair Vale, for summer day-dreams high,
For reverie in solitude
Fashion'd in Nature's finest mood;
Or, sweeter yet, for fond excess
Of glee, and vivid cry,
Whilst happy children find more happiness

Ranging the brambled hollows free
For purple feast;--till, light as Hope,
The little footsteps scale the slope;
And from the highest height we view
Our island-girdling sea
Bar the green valley with a wall of blue.

The poets whose landscape-pictures are here contrasted with English scenery, are Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, Theocritus, and Vergil.

A HOME IN THE PALACE

1840-1861

Thrice fortunate he
Who, in the palace born, has early learn'd
The lore of sweet simplicity:
From smiling gold his eyes inviolate turn'd,
Turn'd unreturning:--Who the people's cause,
The sovereign-levelling laws,

Above the throne,
--He made for them, not they for him,--has set;
Life-lavish for his land alone,
Whether she crown with gratitude, or forget:--
He, who in courts beneath the purple weight
Of precedence moves sedate,

By all that glare
Of needful pageantry less stirr'd than still'd,
Bringing a waft of natural air
Through halls with pomp and flattering incense fill'd;
And in the central heart's calm secret, waits
The closure of the gates,

The music mute,
The darkling lamps, the festal tables clear:--
Then,--glad as one who from pursuit
Breathes safe, and lets himself himself appear,--
Turns to the fireside jest, the laughing eyes,
The love without disguise,--

On home alone,
The loyal partnership of man with wife,
Building a throne beyond the throne;
All happiness in that common household life
By peasant shared with prince,--when toil and health,
True parents of true wealth,

To its fair close
Round the long day, and all are in the nest,
And care relaxes to repose,
And the blithe restless nursery lulls to rest;
Prayer at the mother's knee; and on their beds
We kiss the shining heads!

--Thrice fortunate he
Who o'er himself thus won his masterdom,
Earning that rare felicity
E'en in the palace walls to find the Home!
Who shaped his life in calmness, firm and true,
Each day, and all day through,

To that high goal
Where self, for England's sake, was self-effaced,
In silence reining-in his soul
On the strait difficult line by wisdom traced,
'Twixt gulf and siren, avalanche and ravine,
Guarding the golden mean.

Hence, as the days
Went by, with insight time-enrich'd and true,
O'er Europe's policy-tangled maze
He glanced, and touch'd the central shining clue:
And when the tides of party roar'd and surged,
'Gainst the state-bulwarks urged

By factious aim
Masquing beneath some specious patriot cloke,
Or flaunting a time-honour'd name,--
Athwart the flood he held an even stroke;
Between extremes on her old compass straight
Aiding to steer the state.

With equal mind,
Hence,--sure of those he loved on earth, and then
His loved ones sure again to find,--
For Christ's and England's cause, Goodwill to men,
To the end he strove, and put the fever by,--
Ready to live or die.

--And if in death
We were not so alone, who might not quit,
Smiling, this tediousness of breath,
These bubble joys that flash and burst and flit,--
This tragicomedy of life, where scarce
We know if it be farce,

A puppet-sight
Of nerve-pull'd dolls that o'er the world dance by,
Or Good in that unequal fight
With Ill . . . who from such theatre would not fly?
--But those dear faces round the bed disarm
Death of his natural charm!

--O Prince, to Her
First placed, first honour'd in our love and faith,
True stay, true constant counseller,
From that first love of boyhood's prime,--to death!
O if thy soul on earth permitted gaze
In these less-fortunate days

When, hour by hour,
The million armaments of the world are set
Skill-weapon'd with new demon-power,
Mouthing around this little isle, . . . and yet
On dream-security our fate we cast,
Of all that glory-past

With light fool-heart
Oblivious! . . . O in spirit again restored,
Insoul us to the nobler part,
The chivalrous loyalty of thy life and word!
Thou, who in Her to whom first love was due,
Didst love her England too,

If earthly care
In that eternal home, where thou dost wait
Renewal of the days that were,
Move thee at all,--upon the realm estate
The wisdom of thy virtue, the full store
Thy life's experience bore!

O known when lost,
Lost, yet not fully known, in all thy grace
Of bloom by cruel early frost,
Best prized and most by Her, to whom thy face
Was love and life and counsel:--If this strain
Renew not all in vain

The bitter cry
Of yearning for the loss we yet deplore,--
Yet for her heart, who stood too nigh
For comfort, till God's hour thy face restore.
Man has no lenitive! He, who wrought the grief, . . .
Alone commands relief.

--Thou, as the rose
Lies buried in her fragrance, when on earth
The summer-loosen'd blossom flows,
Art sepulchred and embalm'd in native worth:
While to thy grave, in England's anxious years,
We bring our useless tears.

_Above the throne_; 'He knows that if Princes exist, it is for the good of the people. . . . Well for him that he does so,' was the remark made by an observing foreigner on Prince Albert: (Martin: _Life of H.R.H. the Prince Consort_: ch. xi).

_On home alone_; 'She who reigns over us,' said the then Mr. Disraeli when seconding the Address on the death of the Duchess of Kent, (March, 1861), 'She who reigns over us has elected, amid all the splendour of empire, to establish her life on the principle of domestic love' (Martin: ch. cxi).

_Firm and true_, 'Treu und Fest' is the motto of the Saxe-Coburg family.

_Goodwill to men_; A revision of the despatch to the Cabinet of the United States, remonstrating on the 'Trent affair,' whilst the fatal fever was on him, was the last of Prince Albert's many services (Nov. 30, 1861) to England. To the temperate and conciliatory tone which he gave to this message, its success in the promotion of peace between the two countries was largely due: (Martin: ch. cxvi).

ODE

_FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE_ 1887

. . . _Sunt hic sua praemia laudi_, _Sunt lacrimae rerum_ . . .

As when the snowdrop from the snowy ground
Lifting a maiden face, foretells the flowers
That lurk and listen, till the chaffinch sound
Spring's advent with the glistening willow crown'd,
Sheathed in their silken bowers:--
E'en so the promise of her life appears
Through those white childhood-years;
--Whether in seaside happiness, and air
Rosing the fair cheek,--sand, and spade, and shell,--
Or race with sister-feet, that flash'd and fell
Printing the beach, while the gay comrade-wind
Play'd in the soft light hair:--
Or if with sunbeam-smile and kind
Small hand at cottage-door
Her simple alms she tender'd to the poor:
Love's healthy happy heart in all her steps was seen,
And God, in life's fresh springtime, bless'd our Queen.

Lo! the quick months their order'd dance pursue,
And Spring's bright apple-blossoms flush to fruit;
The bay-tree thrives 'neath Heaven's own gracious dew,
And her young shoots the parent-life renew
Around the fostering root.
--The Girl from care in youth's sweet sleep withdrawn
Wakes to a crown at dawn!
But Love is at her side, strong, faithful, wise,
To share the world-wide burden of command,
The sceptre's weight in the unlesson'd hand;
To aid each nursery inmate,--each in turn
Dear pride of watchful eyes,--
To clasp the innocent hands, and learn
The words of love and grace,
Lifting their souls to the compassionate Face:--
While o'er the fortunate fold the Shepherd watch'd unseen;
And home, in all its beauty, bless'd a Queen.

Ah! Happy she, who wedded finds in one
Wisest and dearest! happy, happy years!
But summer whirlwinds wait on summer's sun;
Where the Five Rivers from Himala run,
His snow where Everest rears,
Or Alma's echoing crags with war-cry wake
The wind-vext Euxine lake.
--O Death in myriad forms! O brutal roar
Of battle! throes of race, and crash of thrones!
Imploring hands, and wreck of whitening bones
In Khyber pass;--Or woman's stifled cry,
And that dark pit of gore!
--Yet night had light; for He was by,
Her heart, her strength, her shield,
Twin-star in the Throne's radiance self-conceal'd;
Love's hand laid light on hers, guiding the ship unseen--
For God's best grace in Albert bless'd the Queen.

But at man's side each hour with ambush'd sword
Death hurries, nor for prayer nor love delays;
In God's own time His harvest-sheaves are stored,
'For My thoughts are not your thoughts,' saith the Lord,
'Nor are your ways My ways.'
He Who spared not the Son His bitter cup,
The broken heart binds up
In His fit hour, All-Merciful!--And she,
The desolate faithful Mother, in the nest
By children's love soft-woven, has found rest;
Some constant to her side, if some have flown
The Angels' road, and see
The Vision of the Eternal Throne:--
With them, 'tis well!--But thou,
Strong through submission, to His will dost bow,
Till God renew the home in that far realm unseen,
And bless with all her lost ones England's Queen.

Yet in great Nature's changeful mystic dance
Joy circles grief, gay dawn outsmiles the night:
'Tis meet our song should build its radiance
Like some high palace-porch, and walls that glance
With gold and marble light:
Now fifty suns 'neath one firm patriot sway
Have whirl'd their shining way.
--Lo Commerce with the golden girdling chain
That links all nations for the good of each;
While Science boasts her silent lightning speech
Swifter than thought; and how her patience rein'd
To post o'er earth and main
The panting white-breath'd Titan, chain'd
Bondslave to man:--and won
The magic spark o'erdazzling star and sun
From its dark cave: for He, the all-seeing Lord unseen
Enlightening, bless'd the years of England's Queen.

Freedom of England! from thy sacred source
Where Alfred arm'd in Athelney, welling pure,
With hero-blood dyed in thy widening course,
--What loyaler hand than her's to guide thy force
Down ancient channels sure?
Honour of England! in what bosom stirs
Thy soul more quick than her's?
Yet in her days . . . O greater grief, than when
In years of woe, the years of happiness
Flash o'er us,--to behold,--and no redress,--
Some deed of shame we cannot cure nor stay!
Our best, our man of men,
Martyr'd inch-meal by dull delay!
Ah, sacred, hidden grave!
Ah gallant comrade feet, love-wing'd to save,
Too late, too late!--But Thou, Whose counsels work unseen,
Spare us henceforth such pangs, spare England's Queen

O much enduring, much revered! To thee
Bring sun-dyed millions love more sweet than fame,
And happy isles that star the purple sea
Homage;--and children at the mother's knee
With her's unite thy name;
And faithful hearts, that throb 'neath palm and pine,
From East to West, are thine.
For as some pillar-star o'er sea and storm
Whole fleets to haven guides, so from that height
One great example points the path of Right,
And purifies the home; with gracious aid
Lifting the fallen form.
See Death by finer skill delay'd;
Kind hearts to wait on woe,
And feet of Love that in Christ's footsteps go;
Wild wastes of life reclaim'd by Woman's hand unseen:
All England bless'd with England's Empress Queen.

And now, as one who through some fruitful field
Has urged the fifty furrows of the grain,--
Look round with joy, and know thy care will yield
A thousandfold in its due day reveal'd,
The harvest laugh again:--
E'en now thy great crown'd ancestors on high
Watch with exultant eye
Thy hundred Englands o'er the broad earth sown,
And Arthur lives anew to hail his heir!
--O then for her and us we chant the prayer,--
Keep Thou this sea-girt citadel of the free
Safe 'neath her ancient throne,
Love-link'd in loyal unity;
Let eve's calm after-glow
Arch all the heaven with Hope's wide roseate bow:
Till in Time's fulness Thou, Almighty Lord unseen,
With glory and life immortal crown the Queen.

Published (June, 1887) under sanction of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Oxford; and intended as an humble offering of loyalty and hearty good-wishes on the part of the University.

ENGLAND ONCE MORE

Old if this England be The Ship at heart is sound, And the fairest she and gallantest That ever sail'd earth round! And children's children in the years Far off will live to see Her silver wings fly round the world, Free heralds of the free! While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

They are firm and fine, the masts; And the keel is straight and true; Her ancient cross of glory Rides burning through the blue:-- And that red sign o'er all the seas The nations fear and know, And the strong and stubborn hero-souls That underneath it go:-- While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

Prophets of dread and shame, There is no place for you, Weak-kneed and craven-breasted, Amongst this English crew! Bluff hearts that cannot learn to yield, But as the waves run high, And they can almost touch the night, Behind it see the sky. While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

As Past in Present hid, As old transfused to new, Through change she lives unchanging, To self and glory true; From Alfred's and from Edward's day Who still has kept the seas, To him who on his death-morn spoke Her watchword on the breeze! While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

What blasts from East and North, What storms that swept the land Have borne her from her bearings Since Caesar seized the strand! Yet that strong loyal heart through all Has steer'd her sage and free, --Hope's armour'd Ark in glooming years, And whole world's sanctuary! While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

Old keel, old heart of oak, Though round thee roar and chafe All storms of life, thy helmsman Shall make the haven safe! Then with Honour at the head, and Faith, And Peace along the wake, Law blazon'd fair on Freedom's flag, Thy stately voyage take:-- While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless Thee as of yore, Once more we cry for England, England once more!

APPENDIX

A: p. 87

_Till the terrible Day unreveal'd_; Much of course is and will probably remain unknown among the details of that fatal and fascinating drama, Mary's life. But all hitherto ascertained evidence has now, mainly by Mr. Hosack, been sifted so closely and so ably that the main turning points in her career seem to have reached that twilight certainty beyond which History can rarely hope to go, and are placed beyond the reach of reasonable controversy. Such, (not to enter upon the Queen's life as Elizabeth's captive), is the more than Macchiavellian--the almost incredible--perfidy of the leading Scottish politicians, united with a hypocrisy more revolting still, and enabled to do its wicked work, (with regret we must confess), by the shortsighted bigotry of Knox:--The gradual forgery of the letters by which the Queen's death was finally obtained from the too-willing hands of Elizabeth's Cabinet:--The all but legally proved innocence of Mary in regard to Darnley's death, and the Bothwell marriage. Taking her life as a whole, it may be fairly doubted whether any woman has ever been exposed to trials and temptations more severe, or has suffered more shamefully from false witness and fanatical hatred. But the prejudices which have been hence aroused are so strong, such great interests, religious and political, are involved in their maintenance, that they will doubtless prevail in the popular mind until our literature receives,--what an age of research and of the scientific spirit should at last be prepared to give us,--a tolerably truthful history of the Elizabethan period. (1889)

B: p. 102

_Heroes both_;--_Each his side_;--In regard to the main issue at stake in the Civil War, and the view taken of it throughout this book, let me here once for all remark that no competent and impartial student of our history can deny a fair cause to each side, whatever errors may have been committed by Charles and by the Parliament, or however fatal for some fifteen years to liberty and national happiness were the excesses and the tyranny into which the victorious party gradually, and as it were inevitably, drifted. 'No one,' says Ranke (whom I must often quote, because to this distinguished foreigner we owe the single, though too brief, narrative of this period in which history has been hitherto, treated historically, that is, without judging of the events by the light either of their remote results, or of modern political party), 'will make any very heavy political charge against Strafford on the score of his government of Ireland, or of the partisan attitude which he had taken up in the intestine struggle in England in general; for the ideas for which he contended were as much to be found in the past history of England as were those which he attacked:' --and Hampden's conduct may claim analogous justification. If the Parliament could appeal to those mediaeval precedents which admitted the right of the people through their representatives, to control taxation and (more or less) direct national policy, Charles, (and Strafford with him), might as lawfully affirm that they too were standing 'on the ancient ways'; on the royal supremacy undeniably exercised by Henry II or Edward I. by Henry VIII and by Elizabeth. Both parties could equally put forward the prosperity of England under these opposed modes of government: Patriotism, honour, conscience, were watchwords which either might use with truth or abuse with profit. If the great struggle be patiently studied, the moral praise and censure so freely given, according to a reader's personal bias, will be found very rarely justified. There was far, very far, less of tyranny or of liberty involved in the contest, up to 1642, than partisans aver. To the actual actors (nor, as retrospectively criticized by us) it is a fair battle on both sides, not a contest 'between light and darkness.'

We, looking back after two centuries, are of course free to recognize, that one effect of the Tudor despotism had been to train Englishmen towards ruling themselves;--we may agree that the time had come for Lords and Commons to take their part in the Kingdom. But no proof, I think it may be said, can be shown that this great idea, in any conscious sense, governed the Parliaments of James and Charles. It is we who,--reviewing our history since the definite establishment of the constitutional balance after 1688, and the many blessings the land has enjoyed,--can perceive what in the seventeenth century was wholly hidden from Commonwealth and from King. And even if in accordance with the common belief, we ascribe English freedom and prosperity and good government to the final triumph of the popular side, yet deeper consideration should suggest that such retrospective judgments are always inevitably made under our human entire ignorance what might have been the result had the opposite party prevailed. Who should say how often, in case of these long and wide extended struggles,--political and dynastic,--the effects which we confidently claim as _propter hoc_, are only _post hoc_ in the last reality?

Waiving however these somewhat remote and what many will judge over-sceptical considerations, this is certain, that unless we can purify our judgment from reading into the history of the past the long results of time;--from ascribing to the men of the seventeenth century prophetic insight into the nineteenth;--unless, in short, we can free ourselves from the chain of present or personal prepossessions;--no approach can be made to a fair or philosophical judgment upon such periods of strife and crisis as our Civil War preeminently offers.

C: p. 108

_With glory he gilt_; Yet to readers, (if such readers there be) who can look with an undazzled eye on military success, or hear the still small voice of truth through the tempest of rhetoric, Cromwell's foreign policy, (excepting the isolated case of his interference with the then comparatively feeble powers of Savoy and the Papacy on behalf of the persecuted Waldenses), will be far from supporting the credit with which politico-theological partisanship has invested it.

Holland was beyond question the natural ally on political and religious grounds of puritan England. But a mischievous war against her in 1652-3 was caused by the arrogant restrictions of the Navigation Act of 1651. The successful English demand in 1653 that the Orange family, as connected closely with that of Stuart, should be excluded from the Stadtholdership, was in a high degree to the prejudice of the United Provinces.

In 1654 Cromwell was negotiating with France and Spain. From the latter he arrogantly asked wholly unreasonable terms, whilst Mazarin, on the part of France, offered Dunkirk as a bribe. News opportunely arriving that certain Spanish possessions in America were feebly armed, Cromwell at once declared war: and now, supplementing unscrupulous policy by false theology, announced 'the Spaniards to be the natural and ordained enemies of England, whom to fight was a duty both to country and to religion:' (Ranke: xii. 6).

The piratical war which followed, in many ways similar to that which the 'wise Walpole' tried to avert in 1739, was hardly less impolitic than immoral. It alienated Holland, it sanctioned French aggression on Flanders (xii. 7), it ended by giving Mazarin and Lewis XIV that supremacy in Western Europe for which England had to pay in the wars of William III and Anne; whilst, as soon as it was over, France naturally allied herself with Spain, on a basis which might have caused the union of the two crowns (xii. 8) and which allowed Spain at once to support Charles II. As the result of the Protector's 'spirited policy' England thus figured as the catspaw of France, and the enemy of European liberty.

It is satisfactory, however, to find that, in Ranke's judgment, the common modern opinion that Cromwell's despotism was favourably regarded in England because of his foreign enterprize, is exaggerated. Even against the conquest of Jamaica,--his single signal gain,--unanswerable arguments were popularly urged at the time: (xii. 4, 8)--But the Protectorate, in the light of modern research,--like the reign of Elizabeth,--still awaits its historian.

D: p. 127

_The sky by a veil_; 'A spiritual world,' says a critic of deep insight, 'over and above this invisible one, is a most important addition to our idea of the universe; but it does not of itself touch our moral nature. . . . Its moral effect depends entirely upon what we make that world to be.'--Cromwell's religion, which may be profitably studied in his letters and speeches, (much better known of, than read) reveals itself there as the simple reflex of his personal views: it had great power to animate, little or none to regulate or control his impulses. He had, indeed, a most real and pervading 'natural turn for the invisible; he thought of the invisible till he died; but the cloudy arch only canopied a field of human aim and will.'

_The horrible sacrament_; The summary of Cromwell's conduct at Drogheda by a writer of so much research, impartiality, and philosophic liberality as Mr. Lecky deserves to be well considered.

'The sieges of Drogheda and Wexford, and the massacres that accompanied them, deserve to rank in horror with the most atrocious exploits of Tilly and Wallenstein, and they made the name of Cromwell eternally hated in Ireland. It even now acts as a spell upon the Irish mind, and has a powerful and living influence in sustaining the hatred both of England and Protestantism. The massacre of Drogheda acquired a deeper horror and a special significance from the saintly professions and the religious phraseology of its perpetrators, and the town where it took place is, to the present day, distinguished in Ireland for the vehemence of its Catholicism:' (_Hist. of Eighteenth Cent_. ch. vi).

_Mortal failure_; The ever-increasing unsuccess of Cromwell's career is forcibly set forth by Ranke (xii. 8). He had 'crushed every enemy,--the Scottish and the Presbyterian system, the peers and the king, the Long Parliament and the Cavalier insurgents,--but to create . . . an organization consistent with the authority which had fallen to his own lot, was beyond his power. Even among his old' Anabaptist and Independent 'friends, his comrades in the field, his colleagues in the establishment of the Commonwealth, he encountered the most obstinate resistance. . . . At no time were the prisons fuller; the number of political prisoners was estimated at 12,000 . . . The failure of his plans soured and distracted him.' It was, in fact, wholly 'beyond his power to consolidate a tolerably durable political constitution.'--To the disquiet caused by constant attempts against Cromwell's life, Ranke adds the death of his favourite daughter, Lady Claypole, whose last words of agony 'were of the right of the king, the blood that had been shed, the revenge to come.'

E: p. 146

_Unheirlike heir_; Richard Cromwell has received double measure of that censure which the world's judgment too readily gives to unsuccess, finding favour neither from Royalists nor Cromwellians. Macaulay, with more justice, remarks, 'That he was a good man he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes.' . . . 'He did nothing amiss during his short administration.'

His fall may be traced to several causes: to the fact that the puritan party proper, who supported him, the 'sober men' mentioned by Baxter 'that called his father no better than a traitorous hypocrite,' had not power to resist the fanatic cabal of army chiefs: to the necessity he was under of protecting some justly-odious confederates of Oliver: his own want of ability or energy to govern,--a point fully recognized during Oliver's supremacy; and to his own honourable decision not to 'have a drop of blood shed on his poor account.' Yet there is ample evidence to show that Richard, had he chosen, might have made a struggle to retain the throne,--sufficient, at least, to have thus deluged the kingdom.

Richard's life was passed in great quiet after 1660: Charles II, according to Clarendon, with a wise and humorous lenity, not thinking it 'necessary to inquire after a man so long forgotten.' His letters reveal a man of affectionate and honest disposition; he uses the Puritan phraseology of the day without leaving a sense of nausea in the reader's mind. At Hursley he was buried at a good old age in 1712.

F: p. 152

_A nation's craven rage_; The want of public spirit in England shown during the war of 1745-6 is astonishing. 'England,' wrote Henry Fox, 'is for the first comer . . . Had 5,000 [French troops] landed in any part of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest of it would not have cost them a battle.' And other weighty testimonies might be added, in support of Lord Mahon's view as to the great probability of the Prince's success, had he been allowed by his followers to march upon London from Derby.

This apathy and the panic which followed found their natural issue in the sanguinary punishment of the followers of Prince Charles. 'The city and the generality,' wrote H. Walpole in August, 1746, 'are very angry that so many rebels have been pardoned.' The vindictive cruelty then shown makes, in truth (if we compare the magnitude and duration of the rebellion for which punishment was to be exacted), an unsatisfactory contrast to the leniency of 1660. But History supplies only too numerous proofs that a century's march in civilisation may be always undone at once by the demons of Panic or of Party in the hour of their respective triumphs.

G: p. 169

_Ripe to wed with Liberty_; Looking at the American War of Independence without party-passion and distortion, as should now at least be possible to Englishmen, the main cause must be acknowledged to lie simply in the growth and geographical position of the Colonies, which had brought them to the age of natural liberty, and had begun to fit them for its exercise:--facts which it was equally in accordance with nature that the Fatherland should fail to perceive. For the causes which gradually determined American resistance we must look, (as regards us), not to the blundering English legislation after 1760,--to the formalism of Grenville, the subterfuges of Franklin,--but to the whole course of our commercial policy since the Revolution: As regards the Colonies, to the extinction of the power of France in America by the Treaty of Paris in 1763: (Lecky: ch. v; Mahon: ch. xliii).

The Stamp Act of 1765 brought home, indeed, to a rapidly-developing people the supremacy claimed across the Atlantic; but the obnoxious taxation which it imposed, (despite the splendid sophistry of Chatham), cannot be shown to differ essentially from the trade restrictions and monopolies enacted in long series after 1688, as the result of the predominance obtained at the Revolution by the commercial classes in this country, and which so far as 1765 the colonies openly recognized as legal.

Going, however, beyond these minor motives, the true cause was unquestionably that the time for separate life, for America to be herself, had come. This was a crisis which home-legislation could do little to create or to avert: a natural law, which only worked itself out ostensibly by political manoeuvres and military operations, so ill-managed as to be rarely creditable to either side;--and, regarded simply as a 'struggle for existence,' is, in the eye of impartial history, hardly within the scope of praise or censure.