If They Dare!
Realm of ocean-guarded Peace,
Humming loom and grazing steer,
Farm, and forge, and woven fleece,
Happier, homelier, year by year,
Hark! athwart the wintry air,
Menace mutters, foemen glare:
Leave the shuttle, leave the share,
For the spear!
Envious of her world-wide race,
Goaded by the greed and hate
Of the hungry and the base
For the opulent and great,
``See,'' they whisper, ``did we band
All against Her, hand-in-hand,
We might bring that haughty Land
Face with Fate.''
Plotters insolent and vain,
Muster then your servile swarms.
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Three Sonnets Written In Mid-Channel
I
Now upon English soil I soon shall stand,
Homeward from climes that fancy deems more fair;
And well I know that there will greet me there
No soft foam fawning upon smiling strand,
No scent of orange-groves, no zephyrs bland,
But Amazonian March, with breast half bare
And sleety arrows whistling through the air,
Will be my welcome from that burly land.
Yet he who boasts his birthplace yonder lies,
Owns in his heart a mood akin to scorn
For sensuous slopes that bask 'neath Southern skies,
Teeming with wine and prodigal of corn,
And, gazing through the mist with misty eyes,
Blesses the brave bleak land where he was born.
II
And wherefore feels he thus? Because its shore
Nor conqueror's foot nor despot's may defile,
But Freedom walks unarmed about the isle,
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Birthday
The love within my heart that dwells
Knows nought of days or hours;
I hear thee in the Christmas bells,
I feel thee in the vernal showers;
And thy breath is blent with the wandering scent
Of the summer fruits and flowers.
And yet this morn my blood is stirred
With more than wonted glow;
Thy absent voice is strangely heard,
Thy spells upon me stronger grow;
And my spirit sips from unseen lips
That can be but thine, I know.
For thou wast born upon this day,
When I was but a child,
Ere winter frosts were ta'en away,
Ere primroses peeped out and smiled;
Ere the snows were reft from the sheltering cleft,
And the winds were high and wild.
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Royal Home-Coming
Welcome, right welcome home, to these blest Isles,
Where, unforgotten, loved Victoria sleeps,
But now with happy pride your Father smiles,
Your Mother weeps.
You went as came the swallow, homeward draw
Now it hath winged its way to winters green;
But never swallow or wandering sea-bird saw
What You have seen.
For You have circled the earth with pinions fleet,
The seasons through, and everywhere a throng
Of glowing hearts your coming trooped to greet
With flowers and song.
Over the unchanging sea eight changeful moons
Have moved from shield to sickle, seed to sheaves,
And twice a hundred dawns, a hundred noons,
A hundred eves,
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Pax Britannica
Behind her rolling ramparts England lay,
Impregnable, and girt by cliff-built towers,
Weaving to peace and plenty, day by day,
The long-drawn hours.
In peace Spring freed her flocks and showered her grain,
Summer sate smiling under peaceful leaves,
And Autumn piled on the unwarlike wain
Her sickled sheaves.
And white-winged keels flew fluttering to her shore,
Laden with Eastern bale or Southern fleece,
And from the fields of far-off labour bore
The spoils of Peace.
Then, seeing Her within her waves so blest,
The jealous nations, panoplied alike,
Said, ``Look, She wears no armour on her breast:
What if we strike?''
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Death Of Huss
In the streets of Constance was heard the shout,
``Masters! bring the arch-heretic out!''
The stake had been planted, the faggots spread,
And the tongues of the torches flickered red.
``Huss to the flames!'' they fiercely cried:
Then the gate of the Convent opened wide.
Into the sun from the dark he came,
His face as fixed as a face in a frame.
His arms were pinioned, but you could see,
By the smile round his mouth, that his soul was free;
And his eye with a strange bright glow was lit,
Like a star just before the dawn quencheth it.
To the pyre the crowd a pathway made,
And he walked along it with no man's aid;
Steadily on to the place he trod,
Commending aloud his soul to God.
Aloud he prayed, though they mocked his prayer:
He was the only thing tranquil there.
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Country Nosegay
Where have you been through the long sweet hours
That follow the fragrant feet of June?
By the dells and the dingles gathering flowers,
Ere the dew of the dawn be sipped by noon.
And sooth each wilding that buds and blows
You seem to have found and clustered here,
Round the rustic sprays of the child-like rose
That smiles in one's face till it stirs a tear.
The clambering vetch, and the meadow-sweet tall,
That nodded good-day as you sauntered past,
And the poppy flaunting atop of the wall,
Which, proud as glory, will fade as fast.
The campion bladders the children burst,
The bramble that clutches and won't take nay,
And the pensive delicate foxgloves nursed
In woods that curtain from glare of day.
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
December Matins
``Why, on this drear December morn,
Dost thou, lone Misselthrush, rehearse thy chanting?
The corals have been rifled from the thorn,
The pastures lie undenizened and lorn,
And everywhere around there seems a something wanting.''
Whereat, as tho' awondering at my wonder,
And brooded somewhere nigh a love-mate nesting,
He more loud and longer still
'Gan to tremble and to trill,
Height after height of sound robustly breasting;
As if o'erhead were Heaven of blue, and under,
Fresh green leafage, and he would
Cleave with shafts of hardihood
The mists asunder.
Only the singer it is foresees,
Only the Poet has the voice foretelling.
When the ways harden and the sedge-pools freeze,
He hears light-hearted Spring upon the breeze,
And feels the hawthorn buds mysteriously swelling.
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Shelley’s Death
What! And it was so! Thou wert then
Death-stricken from behind,
O heart of hearts! and they were men,
That rent thee from mankind!
Greedy hatred chasing love,
As a hawk pursues a dove,
Till the soft feathers float upon the careless wind.
Loathed life! that I might break the chain
Which links my kind with me,
To think that human hands for gain
Should have been turned 'gainst thee,-
Thee that wouldst have given thine all
For the poor, the sick, the thrall,
And weighed thyself as dross, 'gainst their felicity!
We deemed that Nature, jealous grown,
Withdrew the glimpse she gave,
In thy bright genius, of her own,
And, not to slay, but save,
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Farewell To Spring
I saw this morning, with a sudden smart,
Spring preparing to depart.
I know her well and so I told her all my heart.
``Why did you, Spring, your coming so delay,
If, now here, you cannot stay?
You win my love and then unloving pass away.
``We waited, waited, O so long, so long,
Just to hear the ousel's song.
To-morrow 'twill be hushed, to-day that is so strong.
``Day after day, and dawn again on dawn,
Winter's shroud was on the lawn,
So still, so smooth, we thought 'twould never be withdrawn.
`Now that at last your welcome mimic snow
Doth upon the hawthorn blow,
It bides not on the bough, but melts before we know.
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!