The time has come when the nation’s trust is no longer reposed in any party, but it is to be hoped that its confidence in the throne is unabated. It has taken centuries to produce a sovereign Power whose unbiased will has become moulded to the English idea of rule, and which is in perfect accord with the desires of our now vast numbers; and it is ardently to be wished that a great people may realize, under every change, that they possess one true friend who occupies the first of the three estates of the realm.
As an individual, part owner of these three estates for yet a little while, I desire to leave behind me, not the words of a laureate, but of a loving subject of the best of sovereigns and the best of women. If I, as a poet, have a wish that I would see gratified, it is to hear my “Ode,” written and published during the year of the Jubilee, sung by loyal voices to the sound of trumpets and to the beating of the drum! It may come in appropriately, as by an amateur, during the present little interregnum. For the perusal of those who partake of my love for, my faith in, the throne, I give it here entire, and once more to my readers say, “Farewell!”
QUEEN VICTORIA’S DAY.
AN ODE OF TRIUMPH ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HER REIGN.
Statecraft and kingly power for ages schooled
The nations will; the rod of genius ruled;
At last, glad day, a maiden’s gentle hand
Sufficed to guide the reins of state by sea and land.
Then said a voice from heaven, “Her lengthened reign
Is to eclipse the pride of kings;