Who journeyed seaward on an exile long,
When fortune's twilight to our island came.
But every keel that cleaves the midway waste
Binds with a silent thread our sea-cleft strands,
Till ocean dwindles and the sea-waste shrinks,
And England mingles with a hundred lands.
And weaving silently all far-off shores
A thousand singing wires stretch round the earth,
Or sleep still vocal in their ocean depths,
Till all lands die to make one glorious birth.