fallen, often, not on simply picturesque incident or unfamiliar character, but on the men and things that we think of first, when thinking of the long chronicle of England,—or upon such as represent and symbolize the main current of it.  Themes, however, on which able or popular song is already extant,—notably in case of Scotland,—I have in general avoided.  In the rendering, my desire has been always to rest the poetry of each Vision on its own intrinsic interest; to write with a straightforward eye to the object alone; not studious of ornament for ornament’s sake; allowing the least possible overt intrusion of the writer’s personality; and, in accordance with lyrical law, seeking, as a rule, to fix upon some factual picture for each poem.

* * * * *

To define, thus, the scope of what this book attempts, is, in itself, a confession of presumptuousness,—the writer’s own sense of which is but feebly and imperfectly expressed in the words from Vergil’s letter to Augustus prefixed as my motto.  In truth, so rich and so wide are the materials,

that to scheme a lyrical series which should really paint the Gesta Anglorum in their fulness might almost argue ‘lack of wit,’ vitium mentis, in much greater powers than mine.  No criticism, however severe, can add to my own consciousness how far the execution of the work, in regard to each of its aims, falls below the plan.  Yet I would allow myself the hope, great as the deficiencies may be, that the love of truth and the love of England are mine by inheritance in a degree sufficient to exempt this book, (the labour of several years), from infidelity to either:—that the intrinsic worth and weight of my subject may commend these songs, both at home, and in the many Englands beyond sea, to those who, (despite the inevitably more engrossing attractions of the Present, and the emphatic bias of modern culture towards the immediate and the tangible), maintain that high and soul-inspiring interest which, identifying us with our magnificent Past, and all its varied lessons of defeat and victory, offers at the same time,—under the guidance from above,—our sole secure guarantee for prosperous and healthy progress in the Future.

The world has cycles in its course, when all
That once has been, is acted o’er again;

and only the nation which, at each moment of political or social evolution, looks lovingly backward to its own painfully-earned experience—Respiciens, Prospiciens, as Tennyson’s own chosen device expresses it—has solid reason to hope, that its movement is true Advance—that its course is Upward.

* * * * *

It remains only to add, that the book has been carefully revised and corrected, and that nineteen pieces published in the original volume of 1881 are not reprinted in the present issue.

F. T. P.
July, 1889

THE VISIONS OF ENGLAND

PRELUDE

CAESAR TO EGBERT

1

   England, fair England!  Empress isle of isles!
   —Round whom the loving-envious ocean plays,
   Girdling thy feet with silver and with smiles,
   Whilst all the nations crowd thy liberal bays;
   With rushing wheel and heart of fire they come,
   Or glide and glance like white-wing’d doves that know
      And seek their proper home:—
   England! not England yet! but fair as now,
When first the chalky strand was stirr’d by Roman prow.

2

   On thy dear countenance, great mother-land,
   Age after age thy sons have set their sign,
   Moulding the features with successive hand
   Not always sedulous of beauty’s line:—
   Yet here Man’s art in one harmonious aim
   With Nature’s gentle moulding, oft has work’d
      The perfect whole to frame:
   Nor does earth’s labour’d face elsewhere, like thee,
Give back her children’s heart with such full sympathy

3

   —On marshland rough and self-sprung forest gazed
   The imperial Roman of the eagle-eye;
   Log-splinter’d forts on green hill-summits raised,
  

Earth huts and rings that dot the chalk-downs high:—
   Dark rites of hidden faith in grove and moor;
   Idols of monstrous build; wheel’d scythes of war;
      Rock tombs and pillars hoar:
   Strange races, Finn, Iberian, Belgae, Celt;
While in the wolds huge bulls and antler’d giants dwelt.

4

   —Another age!—The spell of Rome has past
   Transforming all our Britain; Ruthless plough,
   Which plough’d the world, yet o’er the nations cast
   The seed of arts, and law, and all that now
   Has ripen’d into commonwealths:—Her hand
   With network mile-paths binding plain and hill
      Arterialized the land:
   The thicket yields: the soil for use is clear;
Peace with her plastic touch,—field, farm, and grange are here.

5

   Lo, flintwall’d cities, castles stark and square
   Bastion’d with rocks that rival Nature’s own;
   Red-furnaced baths, trim gardens planted fair
   With tree and flower the North ne’er yet had known;
   Long temple-roofs and statues poised on high
   With golden wings outstretch’d for tiptoe flight,
      Quivering in summer sky:—
   The land had rest, while those stern legions lay
By northern ramparts camp’d, and held the Pict at bay.

6

   Imperious Empire!  Thrice-majestic Rome!
   No later age, as earth’s slow centuries glide,
   Can raze the footprints stamp’d where thou hast come,
   The ne’er-repeated grandeur of thy stride!
   —Though now so dense a darkness takes the land,
   Law, peace, wealth, letters, faith,—all lights are quench’d
     

By violent heathen hand:—
   Vague warrior kings; names writ in fire and wrong;
Aurelius, Urien, Ida;—shades of ancient song.

7

   And Thou—O whether born of flame and wave,
   Or Gorlois’ son, or Uther’s, blameless lord,
   True knight, who died for those thou couldst not save
   When the Round Table brake their plighted word,—
   The lord of song hath set thee in thy grace
   And glory, rescued from the phantom world,
      Before us face to face;
   No more Avilion bowers the King detain;
The mystic child returns; the Arthur reigns again!

8

   —Now, as some cloud that hides a mountain bulk
   Thins to white smoke, and mounts in lighten’d air,
   And through the veil the gray enormous hulk
   Burns, and the summit, last, is keen and bare,—
   From wasted Britain so the gloaming clears;
   Another birth of time breaks eager out,
      And England fair appears:—
   Imperial youth sign’d on her golden brow,
While the prophetic eyes with hope and promise glow.

9

   Then from the wasted places of the land,
   Charr’d skeletons of cities, circling walls
   Of Roman might, and towers that shatter’d stand
   Of that lost world survivors, forth she calls
   Her new creation:—O’er the land is wrought
   The happy villagedom by English tribes
      From Elbe and Baltic brought;
   Red kine light up with life the ravaged plain;
The forest glooms are pierced; the plough-land laughs again.