OUR GREAT ENGLAND OVER THE WATER.

Two nations? pshaw ! nonsense! two peoples? we're one,
By our subject the sea tied together;

Through all time, through the future, beneath every sun,
Storm and sunshine, united, we'll weather;
The greatness of each shall be gladness to both;
One, our language, our glory, our freedom;
If any would part us, for one, I'll be loath
To own either England could breed 'em ;
So, glory to her who our glory shall be,
Our motherland's mightiest daughter!
Every ill

may she shun! every good may she see, Our great England over the water.

They say, we grow weaker, more tame than of old,
You and I, you know, don't quite conceive it;
We're not to take in all the nonsense we're told,
Whoever may will to believe it;

But if ever, as 'twill not, the croak could come true,
Though, like good wine, the older we're stronger,
In the youth of the West, we our youth shall renew,
The mightier as we live the longer.

Then here's might to her, in whose might ours re-lives,
Our freedom, that we here have taught her!
What a future of greatness to us, boys, she gives,
Our grand England over the water!

What, if we've had squabbles! the nearest in blood
Show, by tiffs, best their love for each other;

But they're fools who on such things are given to brood,
And let coldness divide child and mother;

The quarrels of kinsmen should love but renew,
By the contrast but make it the clearer;
So, if we've our tiffs, may they be far and few,
Let them make each to each but the dearer !
Happier, mightier, wiser, each age, may both be,
Old England, and this her dear daughter;

Hand in hand, may they on, England this side the sea
And our great England over the water.

ENGLAND.

O ENGLAND, awe of earth, how great art thou!
Mother of nations, filler of the lands

With freemen, free-born, who is like to thee,
Or hath been? Egypt and the vanish'd rules
Or Asia swept the earth, but desert winds
That blasted races, and, death dealt, were gone,
Their records, ruins. Greece arose and lit
The dark with glory. but a falling star,

How bright, how fleeting! save that yet her thoughts,
Less mortal than her Gods, illume us still.

Rome came and saw and conquered, crushed and pass'd,
Smitten by freemen, she and all her slaves.
Gone are the thrones that the eternal sea
Heap'd riches on and empire-billows huge

That roll'd, and roar'd, and burst upon her shores,
Tyre and the pomp of Sidon-Afric's boast,
Swart Carthage-Venice, and the ocean rules
Of Genoa and of Holland—all are gone.
Spain is the mock of nations once who shook
Even at the utterance of her iron name.
These and their glories are but mutter'd dreams
That by the past's dead lips are feebly told 1;
But we endure, we, sceptred heirs of power,
Victory and empire, fated to endure,

Gathering fresh might and glory through all time.
Our glory is our safeguard. Wall'd we stand

With mighty memories-buckler'd with bright fames;
Our present, still 'tis pillar'd on a past

That lifts it, glistening in time's marvelling gaze,
An awe and wonder to the trembling world.
Yes; were we aged-did our great life die out-
Were England palsied, as the nations are
That once knew greatness, phantoms of the past
Would rule earth for us, and the subject seas,
So long our tributaries, at the thought

Of what we have been, still would crouch and cringe,

And fawn upon our footstool; but, thank God!
Greatly we stand on greatness-rock-like, plant
Feet adamantine through the flow of time,
No muscle loosening; ever widening still
Stretch the broad bases that uprear our strength,
And thrust us skywards; the hot vines of Spain
Ripen beneath our shadow; the green
world
The barks of Palos bared to Europe's gaze,
That is our children's heritage; the isles
That chafe the tropic billows feel our tread;
Lo, other Englands gather in the south,
And 'neath the glare of India we tread out
The bloody wrath that writhes beneath our heel,
And shield the maddening nations from themselves.
Where is the earthly air that has not borne
The record of our glory? What far race
But, naming greatness, to its children tells
Foremost our triumphs, all the mighty names
That are our greatness? For what land on earth,
Sceptred or crownless, can bid glory count
Hero for hero with us-fame for fame ?

Earth boasts one HOMER; we, one yet more high,
SHAKESPEARE. If Florence hush her soul in awe,
Naming her DANTE, hell, and heaven's sweet air
Were breathed by MILTON. Who to wisdom taught
How to be wisest? BACON. NEWTON lived,

And God's dread secrets straight man wondering read,
And all the worlds revolved in order'd law.
WATT made the might of Nature's primal powers
Our toiling bondslaves. DRAKE and wandering Cook,
PARRY and PARK and all their fellows trod

Billow and land, and made them paths to man.
Look, knowledge lightens thought from land to land;
That did our WHEATSTONE. Fame, to name our great,
Were weary ere the flaming roll were told,
And still she writes, what glories! on the scroll,
Courage and wisdom kin to greatness gone,
Those that the blasting path to Lucknow trod,
And smote curst Delhi and its brood of hell,
HAVELOCK and LAWRENCE-names fit mates to those

Who broke the dusky ranks at Plassy first,
And far Assaye, and crush'd Ameer and Sikh
At Meeanee and red Ferozeshah,

And crowned our brows with empire. Crecy's fame,
And mailed Poictiers' and Agincourt's had heirs
In Blenheim and Corunna, and the fields

Of WELLINGTON-Vittoria and its peers,

And the wild, earth-felt shock of Waterloo.

ye old sea-kings, to whom your tossed decks
Were thrones to rule the lands from, from you sprung,
In us lives on your scorn of all that pales
Weakness-in us your hunger of renown.
Sea-roamers-grapplers with the might of storm-
Stern tramplers of the billows, fitting sons
To you were DRAKE and HAWKINS, and the hearts
That with fierce joy, for God and right, went forth
And wrapped the Armada-the Invincible-
In their red wrath, and whelm'd it in the deep.
Brother to you was he whom our proud lips
Name proudly-BLAKE, who, many a bloody day,
Grappled with Dutch VAN TROMP, and thundered down
The broadsides of DE RUYTER. Kin to you,

0 ye old Norse hearts, who dared look on death
And greet him loud if victory with him came,
Were later glories. From your fierce veins sprang
The fiery blood of ROOKE, who gave
La Hogue
To glory-MONK and SHOVEL-BENBOW-HAWKE-
DUNCAN of Camperdown-HoWE-RODNEY-he
Who at St. Vincent thunder-calmed the winds-
And of him, mightiest, whose fierce voice of war
Nile and the Dane heard, crouching-he who gave
To us the ocean's rule at Trafalgar.

So triumph grows to triumph. From the fire
Of by-gone fames we light the glories up
That sun the present. Oh, should danger threat,
New vauntings front us, and the shock of war,
In the red smoke of battle shall we feel
The awful presence of our living dead,
Steeling our hearts to conquer. Hellas heard,
At Marathon, and Salamis, heard clear

The roar of Ares, and the hero shout
Of Ajax pouring flight amid her foe.

The stern dead DOUGLAS won at Otterbourne ;
So WELLINGTON our charging ranks shall hurl
Through future triumphs; through all coming time
Shall foes' masts crash and struck flags flutter down,
We conquering in the thought we can but win
Whose blood is NELSON'S. Nor is fame alone
The bulwark of our greatness. Strong we stand
In surer strength that fates us not to fall;

For we have breathed the breath that knows not death,
Hers in whose might we dread not the decay
That palsies nations. At the mighty breast
Of Freedom were we nurtured. At her knee
Have we drunk in the mighty lore that gives
To nations immortality and youth

Eternal. To our hands she gave the spell
That masters monarchs. From her lips were caught
The charging cheer of Edgehill, and the shout
That at red Naseby scattered far her foes.

Strong in her strength, we strengthen-conquering
And still to conquer, while we do her will.
Us does she gift with wisdom. We are wise
In Courts and counsels-all that builds up States,
And from the clash of thought do we shock out
Fit light to walk by-truths, by which we walk
More and more wisely; but, O island home
Of freemen, thee a future beckons on,
Lit with a glory thou hast never known,
And great with greatness that for thee shall be.
Lo, thou hast walked in sunlight that is night
Seen by the radiance of that perfect day.
Then shall thy homes know wisdom.
But thou shalt ring with knowledge, as a right
Dealt to thy children-to thy sons reared up
Fitly, self-ruled, to share, ungrudged, thy rule,
And walk the ways of greatness, wide to all.
Theirs shall be all the victories of peace,
The piercing eyes to whose all-fearless gaze
Nature gives up her secrets-Art reveals

Not a hearth