spirit saw
This Island race two thousand years ago
In simple savagery, controlled by priests
More fell and bloody than the wolves that howled
At midnight round their monstrous altar-stones,
Scenting the sacrificial human blood.
Saw girt with legions lynx-eyed Caesar come
To taste of Briton's valour. When appeared
Legions succeeding legions, and the swarms
Marshalled by skilful discipline had fallen
To tributaries of all-conquering Rome.
Saw when Rome's grip, through fierce luxurious guilt,
Could hold no longer; and with tattered plume
Her eagles left her slaves to stem or tide
The hungry Pict incursions as they could.
Next when a burly genial race here raised
The White Horse Standard: men who wrought the soil
Till yellow corn, responsive, sunned the plains.
When, lured by booty, Ravens from the North
Bent hitherward: stiffly the contest tugged
Long years; till both the wearied champions joined
Their hands, as common home to share the Isle.
With peace the land grew fat; and wholesome bonds
Of nobles to their kings, and serfs to them,
Fell slackened or distorted to misrule;
When Norman William, hard as rocks and fierce
As fire, with charge of mailed horse and showers
Of steel, won England. Her rough sons he drilled
Grimly: by stern command and strength of sword
He forced obedience where he fixed a law.
For ages long against men's stubborn minds,
With give and take, the bold Plantagenets
Kept up the drill. At length the race, now grown
By constant wrestle into thews of power,
Moved calm with strength beneath the Tudor's sway.
And then a Northern Stuart wore their crown,
Whose son, unmindful he was over men
Truth-lovers, lied to them and lost his head;
For Puritans held no respect for lies.
Next flared Charles Satyr's saturnalia
Of Lely Nymphs, who panting sang "More gold;
We yield our beauties freely; gold, more gold."
Hapless explosions, folly, frenzied plots;
Till well coerced by Lowland William's craft.
Then plans that led to nought, or worse, enforced
By Marlborough's cannon thundering over-seas.
Then through the Guelphic line; our race now grows
To that great power which is to sway the world.

Down from those human shambles, wolf-belapt,
To when, in pardonably grand excess
Of pity, through our people's will was bought
Free indolence for Isles of Western slaves:
And now, when thousands blandly would deny
The proven murderer his rope, the thief
Due chastisement; and when a General
May blunder t