ON A CHARGE MADE AFTER THE PUBLICATION OF A VOLUME OF POETRY
(WRITTEN NEAR WINDERMERE.)
Beautiful Land! They said, “He loves thee not!”
But in a church-yard ’mid thy meadows lie
The bones of no disloyal ancestry.
To whom in me disloyal were the thought
Which wronged thee. For my youth thy Shakspeare wrought;
For me thy minsters raised their towers on high;
Thou gav’st me friends whose memory cannot die:—
I love thee, and for that cause left unsought
Thy praise. Thy ruined cloisters, forests green,
Thy moors where still the branching wild deer roves,
Dear haunts of mine by sun and moon have been
From Cumbrian peaks to Devon’s laughing coves.
They love thee less, be sure, who ne’er had heart
To take, for truth’s sake, ’gainst thyself thy part.
Aubrey de Vere.