Page:For remembrance, soldier poets who have fallen in the war, Adcock, 1920.djvu/367

Rh grievous errors, he can find it in his heart to add:

But praise to you and more than praise

And thankfulness for some things done,

And blessedness and length of days

As long as earth shall last, or sun!

You first among the peoples spoke

Sharp words and angry questionings

Which burst the bonds and shed the yoke

That made your men the slaves of kings!

You set and showed the whole world's school

The lesson it shall surely read,

That each one ruled has right to rule—

The alphabet of Freedom's creed,

Which slowly wins its proselytes

And makes uneasy many a throne:

You taught them all to prate of Rights

In language growing like your own.

And now your holiest and best

And wisest dream of such a tie

As, holding hearts from East to West,

Shall strengthen while the years go by;

And of a time when every man

For every fellow-man will do

His kindliest, working by the plan

God set him. May the dream come true!

And greater dreams! O Englishmen,

Be sure the safest time of all

For even the mightiest State is when

Not even the least desires its fall!