Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/197

191 As Roland on a coward who could flinch; And, after chloroform and ether-gas, We find out slowly what the bee and finch Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in each,— How to our races we may justify Our individual claims, and, as we reach Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply The children's uses: how to fill a breach With olive branches; how to quench a lie With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek With Christ's most conquering kiss! why, these are things Worth a great nation's finding, to prove weak The "glorious arms" of military kings! And so with wide embrace, my England, seek To stifle the bad heat and flickerings Of this world's false and nearly expended fire! Draw palpitating arrows to the wood, And send abroad thy high hopes, and thy higher Resolves, from that most virtuous altitude, Till nations shall unconsciously aspire By looking up to thee, and learn that good And glory are not different. Announce law By freedom; exalt chivalry by peace; Instruct how clear calm eyes can overawe, And how pure hands, stretched simply to release A bond-slave, will not need a sword to draw To be held dreadful. O my England, crease Thy purple with no alien agonies Which reach thee through the net of war! No war! Disband thy captains, change thy victories, Be henceforth prosperous as the angels are— Helping, not humbling.