ls throng:--
Free hands, free hearts, for labour and for glee,
Or village-moot, when thane with churl unites
Beneath the sacred tree;
While wisdom tempers force, and bravery leads,
Till spears beat _Aye_! on shields, and words at once are deeds.

12

Again with life the ruin'd cities smile,
Again from mother-Rome their sacred fire
Knowledge and Faith rekindle through the isle,
Nigh quench'd by barbarous war and heathen ire:--
--No more on Balder's grave let Anglia weep
When winter storms entomb the golden year
Sunk in Adonis-sleep;
Another God has risen, and not in vain!
The Woden-ash is low, the Cross asserts her reign.

13

--Land of the most law-loving,--the most free!
My dear, dear England! sweet and green as now
The flower-illumined garden of the sea,
And Nature least impair'd by axe and plough!
A laughing land!--Thou seest not in the north
How the black Dane and vulture Norseman wait
The sign of coming forth,
The foul Landeyda flap its raven plume,
And all the realms once more eclipsed in pagan gloom!

14

--O race, of many races well compact!
As some rich stream that runs in silver down
From the White Mount:--his baby steps untrack'd
Where clouds and emerald cliffs of crystal frown;
Now, alien founts bring tributary flood,
Or kindred waters blend their native hue,
Some darkening as with blood;
These fraught with iron strength and freshening brine,
And these with lustral waves, to sweeten and refine.

15

Now calm as strong, and clear as summer air,
Blessing and blest of earth and sky, he glides:
Now on some rock-ridge rends his bosom fair,
And foams with cloudy wrath and hissing tides:
Then with full flood of level-gliding force,
His discord-blended melody murmurs low
Down the long seaward course:--
So through Time's mead, great River, greatly glide:
Whither, thou may'st not know:--but He, who knows, will guide.

St. 3 Sketches Prehistoric England. St. 4 _Mile-paths_; old English name
for Roman roads. St. 5 _Tree and flower_; such are reported to have been
naturalized in England by the Romans.--_Northern ramparts_; that of
Agricola and Lollius Urbicus from Forth to Clyde, and the greater work of
Hadrian and Severus between Tyne and Solway. St. 6, 7 The Arthurian
legends,--now revivified for us by Tennyson's magnificent _Idylls of the
King_,--form the visionary links