Page:A midsummer holiday and other poems (IA midsummerholiday00swin).pdf/192

 'Eight ages are gone since kingship entered, With knights and peers at its harnessed back, And the land, no more in its own strength centred, Was cast for a prey to the princely pack. But we pared the fangs and clipped the ravening claws of it, And good was in time brought forth of an evil thing, And the land's high name waxed lordlier in war because of it, When chartered Right had bridled and curbed the king. And what so fair has the world beholden, And what so firm has withstood the years, As Monarchy bound in chains all golden, And Freedom guarded about with peers?