"England hates thee as hell's own gates; and England triumphs, and Rome bows down:
England mocks at thee; England's rocks cast off thy servants to drive and drown:
England loathes thee; and fame betroths and plights with England her faith for crown.
"Spain clings fast to thee; Spain, aghast with anguish, cries to thee; where art thou?
Spain puts trust in thee; lo, the dust that soils and darkens her prostrate brow!
Spain is true to thy service; who shall raise up Spain for thy service now?
"Who shall praise thee, if none may raise thy servants up, nor affright thy foes?
Winter wanes, and the woods and plains forget the likeness of storms and snows:
So shall fear of thee fade even here: and what shall follow thee no man knows."
Lords of night, who would breathe your blight on April's morning and August's noon,
God your Lord, the condemned, the abhorred, sinks hellward, smitten with deathlike swoon:
Death's own dart in his hateful heart now thrills, and night shall receive him soon.
God the Devil, thy reign of revel is here for ever eclipsed and fled:
God the Liar, everlasting fire lays hold at last on thee, hand and head:
God the Accurst, the consuming thirst that burns thee never shall here be fed.
II
England, queen of the waves whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee round,
Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen found?
Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken, acclaims thee crowned.
Times may change, and the skies grow strange with signs of treason and fraud and fear:
Foes in union of strange communion may rise against thee from far and near:
Sloth and greed on thy strength may feed as cankers waxing from year to year.
Yet, though treason and fierce unreason should league and lie and defame and smite,
We that know thee, how far below thee the hatred burns of the sons of night,
We that love thee, behold above thee the witness written of life in light.
Life that shines from thee shows forth signs that none may read not but eyeless foes:
Hate, born blind, in his abject mind grows hopeful now but as madness grows:
Love, born wise, with exultant eyes adores thy glory, beholds and glows.