Be England what she will,
With all her faults she is my country still.
Cowper, who admired Churchill’s poetry as strongly as he detested his principles, says in “The Task”:
England, with all thy faults I love thee still.
But several years before Churchill wrote “The Farewell,” the profligate Bolingbroke concluded a letter to Dean Swift as follows: “Dear Swift, with all thy faults I love thee entirely; make an effort and love me with all mine.”
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the skies!
How silently and with how wan a face!
Sir Philip Sidney.
With what a silent and dejected pace
Dost thou, wan Moon, upon thy way advance—