Iv

Be that your chief of mourning--that!-- ENGLAND, O Mother, and you, The daughter Kingdoms born and reared Of ENGLAND'S travail and sweet blood; And never will you lands, The live Earth over and round, Wherethrough for sixty royal and radiant years Her drum-tap made the dawns English--Never will you So fittingly and well have paid your debt Of grief and gratitude to the souls That sink in ENGLAND'S harness into the dream: 'I die for ENGLAND'S sake, and it is well': As now to this valiant, wonderful piece of earth, To which the assembling nations bare the head, And bend the knee, In absolute veneration--once your Queen.

Sceptre and orb and crown, High ensigns of a sovranty empaling The glory and love and praise of a whole half-world, Fall from her, and, preceding, she departs Into the old, indissoluble Peace.