Title: Victorian Ode for Jubilee Day, 1897
Author: Francis Thompson
Release date: April 20, 2011 [eBook #35922]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
VICTORIAN ODE
FOR JUBILEE DAY, 1897,
BY
FRANCIS THOMPSON.
Printed for private circulation at
The Westminster Press,
1897.
VICTORIAN ODE.
| Night; and the street a corpse beneath the moon, Upon the threshold of the jubilant day That was to follow soon; Thickened with inundating dark ’Gainst which the drowning lamps kept struggle; pole And plank cast rigid shadows; ’twas a stark Thing waiting for its soul, The bones of the preluded pomp. I saw In the cloud-sullied moon a pale array, A lengthened apparition, slowly draw; And as it came, Brake all the street in phantom flame Of flag and flower and hanging, shadowy show Of the to-morrow’s glories, as might suit A pageant of the dead; and spectral bruit I heard, where stood the dead to watch the dead, [Pg 4]The long Victorian line that passed with printless tread. First went the holy poets, two on two, And music, sown along the hardened ground, Budded like frequence of glad daisies, where Those sacred feet did fare; Arcadian pipe, and psaltery, around, And stringèd viol, sound To make for them melodious due. In the first twain of those great ranks of death Went one, the impress recent on his hair Where it was dinted by the laureate wreath: Who sang those goddesses with splendours bare On Ida hill, before the Trojan boy; And many a lovely lay, Where Beauty did her beauties unarray In conscious song. I saw young Love his plumes deploy, And shake their shivering lustres, till the night Was sprinkled and bedropt with starry play Of versicoloured light, To see that poet pass who sang him well; And I could hear his heart Throb like the after-vibrance of a bell. A Strength beside this Beauty, Browning went, With shrewd looks and intent, [Pg 5]And meditating still some gnarlèd theme. Then came, somewhat apart, In a fastidious dream, Arnold, with a half-discontented calm, Binding up wounds, but pouring in no balm. The fervid breathing of Elizabeth Broke on Christina’s gentle-taken breath. Rossetti, whose heart stirred within his breast Like lightning in a cloud, a spirit without rest, Came on disranked; Song’s hand was in his hair, Lest Art should have withdrawn him from the band, Save for her strong command; And in his eyes high Sadness made its lair. Last came a shadow tall, with drooping lid, Which yet not hid The steel-like flashing of his armèd glance; Alone he did advance, And all the throngs gave room For one that looked with such a captain’s mien: A scornful smile lay keen On lips that, living, prophesied of doom. His one hand held a lightning-bolt, the other A cup of milk and honey blent with fire; [Pg 6]It seemed as in that quire He had not, nor desired not, any brother. A space his alien eye surveyed the pride Of meditated pomp, as one that much Disdained the sight, methought; then at a touch, He turned the heel, and sought with shadowy stride His station in the dim, Where the sole-thoughted Dante waited him. What throngs illustrious next, of Art and Prose, Too long to tell; but other music rose When came the sabre’s children: they who led The iron-throated harmonies of war, The march resounding of the armèd line, And measured movement of battalia: Accompanied their tread No harps, no pipes of soft Arcadia, But—borne to me afar— The tramp of squadrons, and the bursting mine, The shock of steel, the volleying rifle-crack, And echoes out of ancient battles dead. So Cawnpore unto Alma thundered back, And Delhi’s cannon roared to Gujerat: Carnage through all those iron vents gave out [Pg 7]Her thousand-mouthèd shout. As balefire answering balefire is unfurled, From mountain-peaks, to tell the foe’s approaches, So ran that battle-clangour round the world, From famous field to field So that reverberated war was tossed; And—in the distance lost— Across the plains of France and hills of Spain It swelled once more to birth, And broke on me again, The voice of England’s glories girdling in the earth. It caught like fire the main, Where rending planks were heard, and broadsides pealed, That shook were all the seas, Which feared, and thought on Nelson. For with them That struck the Russ, that brake the Mutineer, And smote the stiff Sikh to his knee,—with these Came they that kept our England’s sea-swept hem, [Pg 8]And held afar from her the foreign fear. After them came They who pushed back the ocean of the Unknown, And fenced some strand of knowledge for our own Against the outgoing sea Of ebbing mystery; And on their banner “Science” blazoned shone. The rear were they that wore the statesman’s fame, From Melbourne, to The arcane face of the much-wrinkled Jew. Lo, in this day we keep the yesterdays, And those great dead of the Victorian line. They passed, they passed, but cannot pass away, For England feels them in her blood like wine. She was their mother, and she is their daughter, This Lady of the water, And from their loins she draws the greatness which they were. And still their wisdom sways, Their power lives in her. Their thews it is, England, that lift thy sword, [Pg 9]They are the splendour, England, in thy song, They sit unbidden at thy council-board, Their fame doth compass all thy coasts from wrong, And in thy sinews they are strong. Their absence is a presence and a guest In this day’s feast; This living feast is also of the dead, And this, O England, is thine All Souls’ Day. And when thy cities flake the night with flames, Thy proudest torches yet shall be their names. O royal England! happy child Of such a more than regal line; Be it said Fair right of jubilee is thine; And surely thou art unbeguiled If thou keep with mirth and play, With dance, and jollity, and praise, Such a To-day which sums such Yesterdays. Pour to the joyless ones thy joy, thy oil And wine to such as faint and toil. And let thy vales make haste to be more green Than any vales are seen In less auspicious lands, [Pg 10]And let thy trees clap all their leafy hands, And let thy flowers be gladder far of hue Than flowers of other regions may; Let the rose, with her fragrance sweetened through, Flush as young maidens do, With their own inward blissfulness at play. And let the sky twinkle an eagerer blue Over our English isle Than any otherwhere; Till strangers shall behold, and own that she is fair. Play up, play up, ye birds of minstrel June, Play up your reel, play up your giddiest spring, And trouble every tree with lusty tune, Whereto our hearts shall dance For overmuch pleasance, And children’s running make the earth to sing. And ye soft winds, and ye white-fingered beams, Aid ye her to invest, Our queenly England, in all circumstance Of fair and feat adorning to be drest; Kirtled in jocund green, Which does befit a Queen, And like our spirits cast forth lively gleams: [Pg 11]And let her robe be goodly garlanded With store of florets white and florets red, With store of florets white and florets gold, A fair thing to behold; Intrailed with the white blossom and the blue, A seemly thing to view! And thereunto, Set over all a woof of lawny air, From her head wavering to her sea-shod feet, Which shall her lovely beauty well complete, And grace her much to wear. Lo, she is dressed, and lo, she cometh forth, Our stately Lady of the North; Lo, how she doth advance, In her most sovereign eye regard of puissance, And tiar’d with conquest her prevailing brow, While nations to her bow. Come hither, proud and ancient East, Gather ye to this Lady of the North, And sit down with her at her solemn feast, Upon this culminant day of all her days; For ye have heard the thunder of her goings-forth, And wonder of her large imperial ways. [Pg 12]Let India send her turbans, and Japan Her pictured vests from that remotest isle Seated in the antechambers of the Sun: And let her Western sisters for a while Remit long envy and disunion, And take in peace Her hand behind the buckler of her seas, ’Gainst which their wrath has splintered; come, for she Her hand ungauntlets in mild amity. Victoria! Queen, whose name is victory, Whose woman’s nature sorteth best with peace, Bid thou the cloud of war to cease Which ever round thy wide-girt empery Fumes, like to smoke about a burning brand, Telling the energies which keep within The light unquenched, as England’s light shall be; And let this day hear only peaceful din. For, queenly woman, thou art more than woman; Thy name the often-struck barbarian shuns; Thou art the fear of England to her foemen, The love of England to her sons. And this thy glorious day is England’s; who [Pg 13]Can separate the two? She joys thy joys and weeps thy tears, And she is one with all thy moods; Thy story is the tale of England’s years, And big with all her ills, and all her stately goods. Now unto thee The plenitude of the glories thou didst sow Is garnered up in prosperous memory; And, for the perfect evening of thy day, An untumultuous bliss, serenely gay, Sweetened with silence of the after-glow. Nor does the joyous shout Which all our lips give out Jar on that quietude; more than may do A radiant childish crew, With well-accordant discord fretting the soft hour, Whose hair is yellowed by the sinking blaze Over a low-mouthed sea. Exult, yet be not twirled, England, by gusts of mere Blind and insensate lightness; neither fear The vastness of thy shadow on the world. [Pg 14]If in the East Still strains against its leash the unglutted beast Of War; if yet the cannon’s lip be warm; Thou, whom these portents warn but not alarm, Feastest, but with thy hand upon the sword, As fits a warrior race. Not like the Saxon fools of olden days, With the mead dripping from the hairy mouth, While all the South Filled with the shaven faces of the Norman horde. |