O piteous mockery of all pomp thou art,
Poor Child of Clay, worn out with toil and years!
As, layer by layer, the granite of the heart
Dissolving, melteth to the weakest tears
That ever Village Maiden shed above
The grave that robb'd her quiet world of love.
Ten days and nights upon that floor
Those weary limbs have lain;
And every hour has added more
Of heaviness to pain.
As gazing into dismal air
She sees the headless phantom there,
The victim round whose image twined
The last wild love of womankind;
That lightning flash'd from stormy hearts,
Which now reveals the deeps of Heaven,
And now remorseless, earthward darts,
Rives, and expires on what its stroke hath riven!
'Twere sad to see from those stern eyes
Th' unheeded anguish feebly flow;
And hear the broken word that dies
In moanings faint and low;—
But sadder still to mark the while,
The vacant stare—the marble smile,
And think, that goal of glory won.
How slight a shade between
The idiot moping in the sun
And England's giant Queen![G]
V.
Call back the joyous Past!
Lo, England white-robed for a holyday!
While, choral to the clarion's kingly blast,
Shout peals on shout along the Virgin's way,
As through the swarming streets rolls on the long array.
Mary is dead!—Look from your fire-won homes,
Exulting Martyrs!—on the mount shall rest
Truth's ark at last! th' avenging Lutheran comes
And clasps the Book ye died for to her breast![H]
With her, the flower of all the Land,
The high-born gallants ride,
And ever nearest of the band,
With watchful eye and ready hand,
Young Dudley's form of pride![I]
Ah, ev'n in that exulting hour,
Love half allures the soul from Power,—
To that dread brow in bending down
Throbs up, beneath the manlike crown,
The woman's heart wild beating,
While steals the whisper'd worship, paid
Not to the Monarch, but the Maid,
Through tromps and stormy greeting.
VI.
Call back the gorgeous Past!
The lists are set, the trumpets sound,
Still as the stars, when to the breeze
Sway the proud crests of stately trees,
Bright eyes, from tier on tier around,
Look down, where on its famous ground
Murmurs and moves the bristling life
Of antique Chivalry!
"Forward!"[J]—the signal word is given—
Like cloud on cloud by tempest driven;
Steel lightens, and arm'd thunders close!
How plumes descend in flakes of snows;
How the ground reels, as reels a sea,
Beneath the inebriate rapture-strife
Of jocund Chivalry!
Who is the Victor of the Day?
Thou of the delicate form and golden hair
And Manhood glorious in its midst of May;—
Thou who, upon thy shield of argent, bearest
The bold device, "The Loftiest is the Fairest!"
As bending low thy stainless crest,
"The Vestal thronèd by the West"
Accords the old Provençal crown
Which blends her own with thy renown;—
Arcadian Sidney—Nursling of the Muse,
Flower of divine Romance,[K] whose bloom was fed
By daintiest Helicon's most silver dews,
Alas! how soon thy lovely leaves were shed—
Thee lost, no more were Grace and Force united,
Grace but some flaunting Buckingham unmann'd,
And Force but crush'd what Freedom vainly righted—
Behind, lo Cromwell looms, and dusks the land
With the swart shadow of his giant hand.
VII.
Call back the Kingly Past!
Where, bright and broadening to the main,
Rolls on the scornful River,—
Stout hearts beat high on Tilbury's plain,—
Our Marathon for ever!
No breeze above, but on the mast
The pennon shook as with the blast.
Forth from the cloud the day-god strode;
Flash'd back from steel, the splendour glow'd,—
Leapt the loud joy from Earth to Heaven,
As through the ranks asunder riven,
The Warrior-Woman rode!
Hark, thrilling through the armèd Line
The martial accents ring,
"Though mine the Woman's form—yet mine,
"The Heart of England's King!"[L]
Woe to the Island and the Maid!
The Pope has preach'd the New Crusade,[M]
His sons have caught the fiery zeal;
The Monks are merry in Castile;
Bold Parma on the Main;
And through the deep exulting sweep
The Thunder-Steeds of Spain.—
What meteor rides the sulphurous gale?
The Flames have caught the giant sail!
Fierce Drake is grappling prow to prow;
God and St. George for Victory now!
Death in the Battle and the Wind—
Carnage before and Storm behind—
Wild shrieks are heard above the hurtling roar
By Orkney's rugged strands, and Erin's ruthless shore.
Joy to the Island and the Maid!
Pope Sextus wept the Last Crusade!
His sons consumed before his zeal,—
The Monks are woeful in Castile;
Your Monument the Main,
The glaive and gale record your tale,
Ye Thunder-Steeds of Spain!
VIII.