Skill-weapon'd with new demon-power,
Mouthing around this little isle, . . . and yet
On dream-security our fate we cast,
Of all that glory-past

With light fool-heart
Oblivious! . . . O in spirit again restored,
Insoul us to the nobler part,
The chivalrous loyalty of thy life and word!
Thou, who in Her to whom first love was due,
Didst love her England too,

If earthly care
In that eternal home, where thou dost wait
Renewal of the days that were,
Move thee at all,--upon the realm estate
The wisdom of thy virtue, the full store
Thy life's experience bore!

O known when lost,
Lost, yet not fully known, in all thy grace
Of bloom by cruel early frost,
Best prized and most by Her, to whom thy face
Was love and life and counsel:--If this strain
Renew not all in vain

The bitter cry
Of yearning for the loss we yet deplore,--
Yet for her heart, who stood too nigh
For comfort, till God's hour thy face restore.
Man has no lenitive! He, who wrought the grief, . . .
Alone commands relief.

--Thou, as the rose
Lies buried in her fragrance, when on earth
The summer-loosen'd blossom flows,
Art sepulchred and embalm'd in native worth:
While to thy grave, in England's anxious years,
We bring our useless tears.

_Above the throne_; 'He knows that if Princes exist, it is for the good
of the people. . . . Well for him that he does so,' was the remark made
by an observing foreigner on Prince Albert: (Martin: _Life of H.R.H. the
Prince Consort_: ch. xi).

_On home alone_; 'She who reigns over us,' said the then Mr. Disraeli
when seconding the Address on the death of the Duchess of Kent, (March,
1861), 'She who reigns over us has elected, amid all the splendour of
empire, to establish her life on the principle of domestic love' (Martin:
ch. cxi).

_Firm and true_, 'Treu und Fest' is the motto of the Saxe-Coburg family.

_Goodwill to men_; A revision of the despatch to the Cabinet of the
United States, remonstrating on the 'Trent affair,' whilst the fatal
fever was on him, was the last of Prince Albert's many services (Nov. 30,
1861) to England. To the temperate and conciliatory tone which he gave
to this message, its success in the promotion of peace between the two
countries was largely due: (Martin: ch. cxvi).

ODE

_FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE_
1887

. . . _Sunt hic sua praemia laudi_,
_Sunt lacrimae rerum_