Songs of love and empire — Inside the Classic

triumph for our Lady and our Queen, More rich than any king in any land hath seen.

Clothed are your streets with scarlet, gold, and blue, Flowers under foot and banners over head, And while your people’s voice storms Heaven for you About your way are voiceless blessings shed, And over you are spread Wide wings of love, free love, tamed to your hand, Love that gold cannot buy, nor Majesty command.

Not these mere visible millions only, share Your triumph--here all English hearts beat high, Nations far off your royal colours wear, And swell with unheard voice this loyal cry That strikes the English sky: A cloud of unseen witnesses is here To testify how great is England’s Queen, and dear.

From out the grey-veiled past, long years away, Come visionary faces, vision-led, And splendid shapes that are not of our day, The spirits of the mute and mighty dead, To see how Time has sped The fortunes of their England, and behold How much more great she is than in the days of old.

The world can see them not; but you can see-- You the inheritor of all the past Wherein the dead, in noble heraldry, Blazoned the shield of England, and forecast The charge it bears at last-- More splendid than the azure and the or Of the French lilies lost--long lost and sorrowed for.

Here be the weaponed men, the English folk, Who in long ships across the swan’s bathfared, In whose rude tongue the voice of Freedom spoke, In whose rough hands the sword was bright and bared-- The men who did and dared, And to their sons bequeathed the fighting blood That drives to Victory and will not be withstood.

Here, in your ordered festival, O Queen, Mixed with the crowd and all unseen of these, On their long swords the wild Norse rovers lean And watch the progress of your pageantries, And on this young June breeze Float the bright pennons of the Cressy spears-- Shine shadowy shafts that fell, as snow falls, at Poitiers.

Here flutter phantom flags that once flew free Above the travail of the tournament; Here gleam old swords, once wet for Liberty; Old blood-stiff banners, worn with war and rent, Are with your fresh flowers blent, And by your crown, where love and fame consort, Shines the unvanquished cloven crown of Agincourt.

Upon your river where, by day and night, Your world-adventuring ships come home again, Glide ghostly galleons, manned by men of might Who plucked the wings and singed the beard of Spain; The men who, not in vain, Saved to the children of a world new-trod The birth-tongue of our land, her freedom, and her God.

Princes who lived to make our England great, Poets who wreathed her greatness with their song, Wise men who steered her heavy ship of State, Brave men who steered her battle-ships along, In spectral concourse throng To applaud the consummated power and pride Of that belovèd land for which they lived and died.

The thousand un-named heroes who, sword-strong, Ploughed the long acre wherein Empire grows Wide as the world, and long as Time is long-- These mark the crescence of the English rose Whose thorny splendour glows O’er far-off subject lands, by alien waves, A crown for England’s brow, a garland for her graves.

And faces out of unforgotten years, Faces long hidden by death’s misty screen, Faces you still can scarcely see for tears, Will smile on you to-day and near you lean, O Mother, Wife, and Queen! With whispered love too sacred and too dear For any ear than yours, Mother and Wife, to hear.

Lady, the crowd will vaunt to-day your fame, Daughter and heir of many mighty kings, The Queen of England, whose imperial name From England’s heart and lips tumultuous springs In prayers and thanksgivings, Because your greatness and her greatness shine Merged each in each, as stars their beams that intertwine.

Yet in the inmost heart, where folded close The richest treasures of the poorest lie, Love, whose clear eyes see many secrets, knows A nobler name than Queen to call you by, And breathes it silently; But, ’mid His listening crowd of angels, One Shall speak your name and say, “Faithful and good, well done!”

Ring, bells! flags, fly! and let the great crowd roar Its ecstasy. Let the hid heart in prayer Lift up your name. God bless you evermore, Lady, who have the noblest crown to wear That ever woman wore. A jewel, in the front of time, shall blaze This day, of all your days commemorate; With Time’s white bays your brows are laureate, And England’s love shall garland all your days.