XI

Can it be thought, or can the thought be borne, That for a single hour beneath the sun Earth shall endure, when England’s day is done? A world without an England! Yea, but shorn Of the divinest gem her breast hath worn, What most she makes for—doomed thenceforth to run Blind, lost, and calling for that treasured One, Through star-sown space, unfathomably mourne! Never again the liquid air to breathe On a May morn among the Mendip Hills; Never to watch the green Atlantic seethe Around the Lizard, while the Severn fills; Never to hear the quivering strings that hung The speech of Chatham on the English tongue!