This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise;
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for reputation through the world;—
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune.
THE END
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Clayton’s English Female Artists, 1876.
[2] In the Exhibition of 1903, 330 out of 1180, or 28 per cent, were ladies.
[3] The first female gold medallist was Miss Louisa Starr (now Madame Canziani), and she was followed by Miss Jessie Macgregor, a niece of Alfred Hunt.
[4] The Parish Register shows that the plague reached Chalfont later on.
[5] See Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham. (London: Fisher Unwin, 1897.)
[6] A Flat Iron for a Farthing, or some Passages in the Life of an Only Son, by Juliana Horatia Ewing. (George Bell and Sons.)