When you loosed hell you did not know
    You loosed all heaven on earth as well,
Still spirit strives with flesh below
    And angels with us dwell.

We fight, but with no mortal sword,
    We thunder, not with earthly guns,
For freedom and the living Lord
    We rise to meet the Huns.

Flushed with your plenitude of power
    You drave the Christ from off His throne,
Bade Thor and Odin bring their dower
    Of blood and iron and stone.

You dreamed that “frightfulness” of death
    Would lead your hosts to victory,
You see with calm untroubled breath
    Our best go forth to die.

You held that might not right was all,
    You were as God to choose the day,
You find when wall and tower fall,
    That courage still can stay.

In rule and drill you put your trust,
    Where cunning served you cunning chose,
You cast all honour to the dust
    And made the world your foes.

To reign not serve, to get not give,
    These were the watchwords of your goal,
You fail, but truth and freedom live,
    And Europe finds her soul.

(The European War 1914-1915 Poems, pp. 200-1)

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On His 80th Birthday, August 6th, 1889

The four-score years that blanch the heads of men
      Touch not the immortals, and we bring to-day
    No flowers to twine with laurel and with bay,
Seeing the spring is with thee now, as when
Above the wold and marsh and mellowing fen
    Thy song bade England listen.  Powers decay,
    Hands fail, and eyes, tongues scarce their will
      can say,
But still Heaven’s fire burns in thy hollow pen.

Oh, singer of the knightly days of old!
    Oh, ringer of the knell to lust and hate!
      Oh, bringer of new hope from memory’s shrine!
When God doth set in Heaven thy harp of gold,
    The souls that made this generation great
      Shall own, The voice that nerved their hearts
          was thine.

(Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 20)

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Mother, whate’er of tuneful power I have
    Was thine since first the flood of life began
    To mix the lime that built me up a man,
And loved me out of darkness.  For my wave,
Sprung from thy deeps, was rhythmic, stave on stave
    Tuned to thy beating heart the current ran
    Charged with such music as will last my span
And leave some simple verse upon my grave.

Wherefore, as waves that from the ocean’s bound
    Drawn deeply back return with added voice,
        Line after line let fall upon the beach,
        I render back to broken shores of speech
What thought flows in upon the tide of sound,
    And know that thou wilt listen and rejoice.

(Sonnets Round the Coast, p. 1)

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All up the road that through the forest wound
        We wondered how the vale and hill would lie
        That charmed an angel message from the sky,
And bade the black-robed monks their Abbey found,
Then suddenly, where Aars’ tumultuous bound
        Leaps bellowing under Nieder-Wald, the sky
        Was closed by Harrnen, the Span-Ortten high
Sprang up, and Titlis shone with Winter crowned.

One-half the vale was shadow, one was sun,
    The cattle lowed, the plain was all a-flower,
        And happy dwellings dotted fell and field,
A great bell clanged, a mighty grange did run
    Athwart the vale, white-walled, with one great
            tower,
        And, Engelberg, thy wonder was revealed.

(Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy, p. 35)

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