Xi

Can it be thought, or can the thought be borne, That for a single hour beneath the sun Earth shall endure, when England’s day is done? A world without an England! Yea, but shorn Of the divinest gem her breast hath worn, What most she makes for--doomed thenceforth to run Blind, lost, and calling for that treasured One, Through star-sown space, unfathomably mourne! Never again the liquid air to breathe On a May morn among the Mendip Hills; Never to watch the green Atlantic seethe Around the Lizard, while the Severn fills; Never to hear the quivering strings that hung The speech of Chatham on the English tongue!

HESEPE, 10th July