Be sure one kingly figure lies with pale and blood-soiled face,
And round his brows a ragged crown of thorns; and in the centre
Of those pale folded hands and feet the sigil of his grace.

See, how the pale limbs, marred and scarred in love's lost battle,
languish;
See how the splendid passion still smiles quietly from his eyes:
Come, come and see a king indeed, who triumphs in his anguish,
Who conquers here in utter loss beneath the eternal skies.

For unto lips so deadly calm what answer shall be given?
Oh pale, pale king so deadly still beneath the unshaken stars,
Who shall deny thy kingdom here, though heaven and earth were riven,
With the last roar of onset in the world's intestine wars?

The laugh is Death's; he laughs as erst o'er hours that England
cherished,
"Count up, count up the stricken homes that wail the first-born son,
Count by your starved and fatherless the tale of what hath perished;
Then gather with your foes and ask if you--or I--have won."

III

The world rolls on; and love and peace are mated:
Still on the breast of England, like a star,
The blood-red lonely heath blows, consecrated,
A brooding practice-ground for blood-red war.

Yet is there nothing out of tune with Nature
There, where the skylark showers his earliest song,
Where sun and wind have moulded every feature,
And one world-music bears each note along.

There many a brown-winged kestrel swoops or hovers
In poised and patient quest of his own prey;
And there are fern-clad glens where happy lovers
May kiss the murmuring summer noon away.

There, as the primal earth was--all is glorious
Perfect and wise and wonderful in view
Of that great heaven through which we rise victorious
O'er all that strife and change and death can do.

No nation yet has risen o'er earth's first nature;
Though love illumed each individual mind,
Like some half-blind, half-formed primeval creature
The State still crawled a thousand years behind.

Still on the standards of the great World-Powers
Lion and bear and eagle sullenly brood,
Whether the slow folds flap o'er halcyon hours
Or stream tempestuously o'er fields of blood.

By war's red evolution we have risen
Far, since fierce Erda chose her conquering few,
And out of