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The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height,
Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionnaire :
No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note,
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase,
Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore,
And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more.

III.

And as months ran on and rumour of battle grew,
'It is time, it is time, O passionate heart,' said I
(For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and true),
It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye,

That old hysterical mock-disease should die.'
And I stood on a giant deck and mix'd my breath
With a loyal people shouting a battle cry,

Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death.

IV.

Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold,
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames,
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told;

And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd!
Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep
For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims,
Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant liar;
And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names,

And noble thought be freër under the sun,

And the heart of a people beat with one desire ;

For the peace, that I deem'd no peace, is over and done,
And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep,
And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.

V.

Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind,

We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still,
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind;

It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill;
I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind,
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd.

A A

DEDICATION.

THESE to His Memory-since he held Before a thousand peering littlenesses,

them dear,

Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself—I dedicate,
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears-
These Idylls.

And indeed He seems to me Scarce other than my own ideal knight, 'Who reverenced his conscience as his king;

In that fierce light which beats upon a

throne,

And blackens every blot : for where is he,
Who dares foreshadow for an only son
A lovelier life, a more unstain'd, than his ?
Or how should England dreaming of his

sons

Hope more for these than some inheritance Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine, Thou noble Father of her Kings to be, Laborious for her people and her poorVoice in the rich dawn of an ampler dayFar-sighted summoner of War and Waste Who loved one only and who clave to To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peaceSweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam

Whose glory was, redressing human wrong; Who spake no slander, no, nor listen'd to it;

her-'

Her-over all whose realms to their last Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art,

isle,

Commingled with the gloom of imminent

war,

The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse,
Darkening the world. We have lost

him he is gone :
We know him now: all narrow jealousies
Are silent; and we see him as he moved,

Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince

indeed,

Beyond all titles, and a household name,
Hereafter, thro' all times, Albert the
Good.

Break not, O woman's-heart, but still
endure;

Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure,

How modest, kindly, all-accomplish'd, Remembering all the beauty of that star

wise,

With what sublime repression of himself,
And in what limits, and how tenderly;
Not swaying to this faction or to that;
Not making his high place the lawless
perch

Which shone so close beside Thee, that

ye made

One light together, but has past and leaves
The Crown a lonely splendour.

May all love, Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage- His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee, ground The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, For pleasure; but thro' all this tract of The love of all Thy daughters cherish

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Wearing the white flower of a blameless The love of all Thy people comfort Thee, Till God's love set Thee at his side again!

life,

355

THE COMING OF ARTHUR.

LEODOGRAN, the King of Cameliard,
Had one fair daughter, and none other
child;

And she was fairest of all flesh on earth,
Guinevere, and in her his one delight.

Came night and day, and rooted in the
fields,

And wallow'd in the gardens of the King.
And ever and anon the wolf would steal
The children and devour, but now and
then,

fierce teat

For many a petty king ere Arthur came Her own brood lost or dead, lent her Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war Each upon other, wasted all the land; And still from time to time the heathen host

Swarm'd overseas, and harried what was left.

To human sucklings; and the children, housed

In her foul den, there at their meat would growl,

And mock their foster-mother on four feet,

And so there grew great tracts of wilder- Till, straighten'd, they grew up to wolflike men,

ness,

Wherein the beast was ever more and Worse than the wolves.

more,

Leodogran

And King But man was less and less, till Arthur Groan'd for the Roman legions here again, And Cæsar's eagle: then his brother king,

came.

For first Aurelius lived and fought and Urien, assail'd him : last a heathen horde, Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood,

died,

And after him King Uther fought and died,

But either fail'd to make the kingdom And on the spike that split the mother's

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But heard the call, and came: and This is the son of Gorloïs, not the King; This is the son of Anton, not the King.'

Guinevere

Stood by the castle walls to watch him

pass;

But since he neither wore on helm or shield

The golden symbol of his kinglihood, But rode a simple knight among his knights,

And many of these in richer arms than he, She saw him not, or mark'd not, if she saw,

One among many, tho' his face was bare. But Arthur, looking downward as he past, Felt the light of her eyes into his life Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitch'd

His tents beside the forest.

drave

And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt

Travail, and throes and agonies of the life,

Desiring to be join'd with Guinevere; And thinking as he rode, 'Her father said That there between the man and beast they die.

Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts Up to my throne, and side by side with

me?

What happiness to reign a lonely king, Vext-O ye stars that shudder over me, O earth that soundest hollow under me, Then he Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be join'd

The heathen, after, slew the beast, and To her that is the fairest under heaven,

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Are like to those of Uther whom we The smallest rock far on the faintest hill,

knew.

And even in high day the morning star.

So when the King had set his banner So well thine arm hath wrought for me broad, to-day.' At once from either side, with trumpet-Sir and my liege,' he cried, the fire of blast, And shouts, and clarions shrilling unto Descends upon thee in the battle-field : I know thee for my King!' Whereat the

blood,

The long-lanced battle let their horses

run.

God

two,

For each had warded either in the fight, And now the Barons and the kings pre- Sware on the field of death a deathless vail'd, love.

And now the King, as here and there And Arthur said, 'Man's word is God in

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Went swaying; but the Powers who walk Let chance what will, I trust thee to the

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And mightier of his hands with every His new-made knights, to King Leodo

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And leading all his knighthood threw the Saying, 'If I in aught have served thee

kings

Carádos, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales,
Claudias, and Clariance of Northumber-
land,

The King Brandagoras of Latangor,
With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore,
And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice
As dreadful as the shout of one who sees
To one who sins, and deems himself alone
And all the world asleep, they swerved
and brake

well,

Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife.'

Whom when he heard, Leodogran in heart

Debating-How should I that am a
king,

However much he holp me at my need,
Give my one daughter saving to a king,
And a king's son ?'-lifted his voice, and
call'd

Flying, and Arthur call'd to stay the A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom He trusted all things, and of him required That hack'd among the flyers, 'Ho! they His counsel: Knowest thou aught of

brands

yield !'

So like a painted battle the war stood

Silenced, the living quiet as the dead,

And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord.

loved

Arthur's birth?'

Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said,

He laugh'd upon his warrior whom he Sir King, there be but two old men that

know :

And honour'd most. 'Thou dost not And each is twice as old as I; and one Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served

doubt me King,

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