ere loud, and lightning mocked at the
blind sun's light;
War and woe on the land below shed heavier shadow than falls from
night;
Dark was earth at her dawn of birth as here her record of praise is
bright.

Clear and fair through her morning air the light first laugh of the
sunlit stage
Rose and rang as a fount that sprang from depths yet dark with a
spent storm's rage,
Loud and glad as a boy's, and bade the sunrise open on
Shakespeare's age.

Lords of state and of war, whom fate found strong in battle, in
counsel strong,
Here, ere fate had approved them great, abode their season, and
thought not long:
Here too first was the lark's note nursed that filled and flooded
the skies with song.

III

Shelley, lyric lord of England's lordliest singers, here first
heard
Ring from lips of poets crowned and dead the Promethean word
Whence his soul took fire, and power to outsoar the sunward-soaring
bird.

Still the reaches of the river, still the light on field and hill,
Still the memories held aloft as lamps for hope's young fire to
fill,
Shine, and while the light of England lives shall shine for England
still.

When four hundred more and fifty years have risen and shone and
set,
Bright with names that men remember, loud with names that men
forget,
Haply here shall Eton's record be what England finds it yet.

THE UNION

I

Three in one, but one in three,
God, who girt her with the sea,
Bade our Commonweal to be:
Nought, if now not one.
Though fraud and fear would sever
The bond assured for ever,
Their shameful strength shall never
Undo what heaven has done.

II

South and North and West and East
Watch the ravens flock to feast,
Dense as round some death-struck beast,
Black as night is black.
Stand fast as faith together
In stress of treacherous weather
When hounds and wolves break tether
And Treason guides the pack.

III

Lovelier than thy seas are strong,
Glorious Ireland, sword and song
Gird and crown thee: none may wrong,
Save thy sons alone.
The sea that laughs around us
Ha