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oar of her laughter to hear them; For she knows that if Englishmen be men Their England has all that she craves; All love and all honour from free men, All hatred from slaves. VI. All love that rests upon her Like sunshine and sweet air, All light of perfect honour And praise that ends in prayer, She wins not more surely, she wears not more proudly, Than the token of tribute that clatters thus loudly, The tribute of foes when they meet That rattles and rings at her feet, The tribute of rage and of rancour, The tribute of slaves to the free, To the people whose hope hath its anchor Made fast in the sea. VII. No fool that bows the back he Feels fit for scourge or brand, No scurril scribes that lackey The lords of Lackeyland, No penman that yearns, as he turns on his pallet, For the place or the pence of a peer or a valet, No whelp of as currish a pack As the litter whose yelp it gives back, Though he answer the cry of his brother As echoes might answer from caves, Shall be witness as though for a mother Whose children were slaves. VIII. But those found fit to love her, Whose love has root in faith, Who hear, though darkness cover Time's face, what memory saith, Who seek not the service of great men or small men But the weal that is common for comfort of all men, Those yet that in trust have beholden Truth's dawn over England grow golden And quicken the darkness that stagnates And scatter the shadows that flee, Shall reply for her meanest as magnates And masters by sea. IX. And all shall mark her station, Her message all shall hear, When, equal-eyed, the nation Bids all her sons draw near, And freedom be more than tradition or faction, And thought be no swifter to serve her than action, And justice alone be above her, That love may be prouder to love her, And time on the crest of her story Inscribe, as remembrance engraves, The sign that subdues with its glory Kings, princes, and slaves. _A WORD FROM THE PSALMIST._ PS. XCIV. 8. I. 'Take heed, ye unwise among the people: O ye fools, when will ye understand?' From pulpit or choir beneath the steeple, Though the words be fierce, the tones are bland. But a louder than the Church's echo thunders In the ears of men who may not choose but hear, And the heart in him that hears it leaps and wonders, With triumphant hope asto
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