Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/143

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Far fall the day when England's realm shall see

The sunset of dominion! Her increase

Abolishes the man-dividing seas,

And frames the brotherhood on earth to be!

She, in free peoples planting sovereignty,

Orbs half the civil world in British peace;

And though time dispossess her, and she cease,

Rome-like she greatens in man's memory.

Oh, many a crown shall sink in war's turmoil,

And many a new republic light the sky,

Fleets sweep the ocean, nations till the soil,

Genius be born and generations die,

Orient and Occident together toil,

Ere such a mighty work man rears on high!

Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread

The wine-press of the nations; fast the blood

Pours from the side of Europe; in the flood

On the septentrional watershed

The rivers of fair France are running red!

England, the mother-aerie of our brood,

That on the summit of dominion stood,

Shakes in the blast: heaven battles overhead!

Lift up thy head, O Rheims, of ages heir

That treasured up in thee their glorious sum;

Upon whose brow, prophetically fair,

Flamed the great morrow of the world to come;

Haunt with thy beauty this volcanic air

Ere yet thou close, O Flower of Christendom!