Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II.

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When youth was high, and life was new And days sped musical and fleet, She stood amid the morning dew, And sang her earliest measures sweet,— Sang as the lark sings, speeding fair To touch and taste the purer air, To gain a nearer view of Heaven; 'Twas then she sang The Songs of Seven.
Now, farther on in womanhood, With trainèd voice and ripened art, She gently stands where once she stood, And sings from out her deeper heart. Sing on, dear Singer! sing again; And we will listen to the strain, Till soaring earth greets bending Heaven, And seven-fold songs grow seventy-seven.
1896
His blew His winds, and they were scattered.
'One soweth and another reapeth.' Ay, Too true, too true. One soweth—unaware Cometh a reaper stealthily while he dreams— Bindeth the golden sheaf, and in his bosom As 't were between the dewfall and the dawn Bears it away. Who other was to blame? Is it I? Is it I?—No verily, not I, 'T was a good action, and I smart therefore; Oblivion of a righteous enmity Wrought me this wrong. I pay with my self ruth That I had ruth toward mine enemy; It needed not to slay mine enemy, Only to let him lie and succourless Drift to the foot o' the Everlasting Throne; Being mine enemy, he had not accused One of my nation there of unkind deeds Or ought the way of war forbids. Let be! I will not think upon it. Yet she was— O, she was dear; my dutiful, dear child. One soweth—Nay, but I will tell this out, The first fyte was the best, I call it such For now as some old song men think on it.
I dwell where England narrows running north; And while our hay was cut came rumours up Humming and swarming round our heads like bees:
'Drake from the bay of Cadiz hath come home, And they are forth, the Spaniards with a force Invincible.' 'The Prince of Parma, couched At Dunkirk, e'en by torchlight makes to toil His shipwright thousands—thousands in the ports Of Flanders and Brabant. An hundred hendes Transports to his great squadron adding, all For our confusion.' 'England's great ally Henry of France, by insurrection fallen, Of him the said Prince Parma mocking cries, He shall not help the Queen of England now Not even with his tears, more needing them To weep his own misfortune.' Was that all The truth? Not half, and yet it was enough (Albeit not half that half was well believed), For all the land stirred in the half belief As dreamers stir about to wake; and now Comes the Queen's message, all her lieges bid To rise, 'lieftenants, and the better sort Of gentlemen' whereby the Queen's grace meant, As it may seem the sort that willed to rise And arm, and come to aid her. Distance wrought Safety for us, my neighbours and near friends, The peril lay along our channel coast And marked the city, undefended fair Rich London. O to think of Spanish mail Ringing—of riotous conquerors in her street, Chasing and frighting (would there were no more To think on) her fair wives and her fair maids. —But hope is fain to deem them forth of her.