Part 22 (1/2)

For though the years their golden round O'er all the lavish region roll, And realm on realm, from pole to pole, In one beneath thy stars be bound: The far-off centuries as they flow, No whiter name than this shall know!

--O larger England o'er the wave, Larger, not greater, yet!--With joy Of generous hearts ye hail'd the Boy Who bow'd before the sacred grave, With Love's fair freight across the sea Sped from the Fatherland to thee!

And Freedom on that Empire-throne Blest in his Mother's rule revered, On popular love a kingdom rear'd, And rooted in the years unknown,-- Land rich in old Experience' store And holy legacies of yore,

And youth eternal, ever-new,-- From the high heaven look'd out:--and saw This other later realm of Law, Of that old household first-born true, And lord of half a world!--and smiled Upon the nations reconciled.

The date prefixed is that of the visit which the Prince of Wales paid to the tomb of Was.h.i.+ngton: carrying home thence, as one of the most distinguished of his hosts said, 'an unwritten treaty of amity and alliance.'

Mount Vernon on the Potomac, named after the Admiral, was the family seat of Augustine, father to George Was.h.i.+ngton, and the residence of the latter from 1752. But all his early years also had been spent in that neighbourhood, in those country pursuits which formed his ideal of life: and thither, on resigning his commission as Commander-in-Chief, he retired in 1785; devoting himself to farming and gardening with all the strenuousness and devoted pa.s.sion of a Roman of Vergil's type. And there (Dec. 1799) was he buried.

_Not eager_; When the ill-feeling between England and America deepened after 1765, Was.h.i.+ngton 'was less eager than some others in declaring or declaiming against the mother country;' (Mahon: _Hist_. ch. lii).

_Ripe to wed with Liberty_; See _Appendix_ G.

_And to the end_; See Petrarch's beautiful lines: _Trionfo della Morte_, cap. I.

_Due to the Liberator_; Compare the epitaph by Ennius on Scipio:

Hic est ille situs, cui nemo civi' neque hostis Quivit pro factis reddere opis pretium.

History, it may be said with reasonable confidence, records no hero more unselfish, no one less stained with human error and frailty, than George Was.h.i.+ngton.

_The years unknown_; It is to Odin, whatever date be thereby signified, that our royal genealogy runs back.

SANDRINGHAM

1871

In the drear November gloom And the long December night, There were omens of affright, And prophecies of doom; And the golden lamp of life burn'd spectre-dim, Till Love could hardly mark The little sapphire spark That only made the dark More dark and grim.

There not around alone Watch'd sister, brother, wife, And she who gave him life, White as if wrought in stone Unheard, invisible, by the bed of death Stood eager millions by; And as the hour drew nigh, Dreading to see him die, Held their breath.

Where'er in world-wide skies The Lion-Banner burns, A common impulse turns All hearts to where he lies:-- For as a babe the heir of that great throne Is weak and motionless; And they feel the deep distress On wife and mother press, As 'twere their own.

O! not the thought of race From Asian Odin drawn In History's mythic dawn, Nor what we downward trace, --Plantagenet, York, Edward, Elizabeth,-- Heroic names approved,-- The blood of the people moved; But that, 'mongst those he loved, He fought with death.

And if the Reason said ''Gainst Nature's law and death Prayer is but idle breath,'-- Yet Faith was undismayed, Arm'd with the deeper insight of the heart:-- Nor can the wisest say What other laws may sway The world's apparent way, Known but in part.

Nor knew we on that life What burdens may be cast; What issues wide and vast Dependent on that strife:-- This only:--'Twas the son of those we loved!

That in his Mother's hand Peace set her golden wand; 'Mid heaving realms, one land Law-ruled, unmoved.

--He fought, and we with him!

And other Powers were by, Courage, and Science high, Grappling the spectre grim On the battle-field of quiet Sandringham: And force of perfect Love, And the will of One above, Chased Death's dark squadrons off, And overcame.

--O soul, to life restored And love, and wider aim Than private care can claim, --And from Death's unsheath'd sword!

By suffering and by safety dearer made:-- O may the life new-found Through life be wisdom-crown'd,-- Till in the common ground Thou too art laid!