Beneath the yew by Rothay’s freeborn stream
Filled with your music, crystal as your heart,
To-day from all the world I go apart;
A hundred years roll backward as in dream,
All of yourself that doth immortal seem
Comes from the grave to hear a patriot’s part,
Your pealing clarion tuned by sonnet art
Sounds, and your brave song-banners forward
gleam.
Wordsworth! an empire needs you at this hour,
For now a second tyrant stands confest,
A ruthless wide-world dominating foe;
Oh! turn not, mighty spirit, to your rest,
But bid us forth as happy warriors go
With freedom’s unimaginable power.
(The European War 1914-1915 Poems, p. 219)