Page:Ode on the coronation of King Edward VII (Grote 1901).djvu/11

 And mongrel peoples and untutored tongues,

Daring to hurl hatred and insolence

Broadcast against a treaty-keeping power,

Wisdom shall find in dire adversity.

Now rest we at the topmost arch of day,

And while, aloft along the sculptured clouds,

Alfred's high throne centres Antiquity

And all the valour of England's feudal reigns,

The flashing fires along the grim sea-walls

And bulwarks of Britannia's broadening zone

Send up a sacred flame around the towers

Of old Westminster. Here King Edward comes!

And Alexandra, queenly as when first

The magic of her charms captured the heart

Of England and turned every Saxon, Celt,

And even the Normans of us, into Danes.

Now they that may, shall to the Abbey go,

That they may say they saw King Edward crowned.

Not always, worthily, has the crown been worn

In England; and not always has its light

Shone as a lode-star to the people's will;

But, from the sacred fane of Winchester

And Wessex, and the time of Ethelred,

And of Canute the Dane, to where the good

Saint Edward, the Confessor King—the great

Restorer of the Saxon line—laid well

The deep foundations of the Abbey walls,

The golden shaft of light from Alfred's crown

Held steady course; and Westminster became

The pledge of him who wrought rather for Church

Than State, yet builded better than he thought;

And here his canonized bones found fitting rest.

Here, Harold and the Norman kings were crowned;

Here, Edward brought the Coronation Stone;

And, whether from Scone or Egypt came the light

Thereof, the sun-light of King Alfred's crown,

And of the crown of the Victorian Age,

Shall great magnificence and glory bring