Idylls of the King

To the Queen

  O loyal to the royal in thyself,
  And loyal to thy land, as this to thee—
  Bear witness, that rememberable day,
  When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince
  Who scarce had plucked his flickering life again
  From halfway down the shadow of the grave,
  Past with thee through thy people and their love,
  And London rolled one tide of joy through all
  Her trebled millions, and loud leagues of man
  And welcome! witness, too, the silent cry,
  The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime—
  Thunderless lightnings striking under sea
  From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm,
  And that true North, whereof we lately heard
  A strain to shame us “keep you to yourselves;
  So loyal is too costly! friends—your love
  Is but a burthen:  loose the bond, and go.”
  Is this the tone of empire? here the faith
  That made us rulers? this, indeed, her voice
  And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont
  Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven?
  What shock has fooled her since, that she should speak
  So feebly? wealthier—wealthier—hour by hour!
  The voice of Britain, or a sinking land,
  Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas?
  There rang her voice, when the full city pealed
  Thee and thy Prince!  The loyal to their crown
  Are loyal to their own far sons, who love
  Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes
  For ever-broadening England, and her throne
  In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle,
  That knows not her own greatness:  if she knows
  And dreads it we are fallen. —But thou, my Queen,
  Not for itself, but through thy living love
  For one to whom I made it o’er his grave
  Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale,
  New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul,
  Ideal manhood closed in real man,
  Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost,
  Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak,
  And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him
  Of Geoffrey’s book, or him of Malleor’s, one
  Touched by the adulterous finger of a time
  That hovered between war and wantonness,
  And crownings and dethronements:  take withal
  Thy poet’s blessing, and his trust that Heaven
  Will blow the tempest in the distance back
  From thine and ours:  for some are scared, who mark,
  Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm,
  Waverings of every vane with every wind,
  And wordy trucklings to the transient hour,
  And fierce or careless looseners of the faith,
  And Softness breeding scorn of simple life,
  Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold,
  Or Labour, with a groan and not a voice,
  Or Art with poisonous honey stolen from France,
  And that which knows, but careful for itself,
  And that which knows not, ruling that which knows
  To its own harm:  the goal of this great world
  Lies beyond sight:  yet—if our slowly-grown
  And crowned Republic’s crowning common-sense,
  That saved her many times, not fail—their fears
  Are morning shadows huger than the shapes
  That cast them, not those gloomier which forego
  The darkness of that battle in the West,
  Where all of high and holy dies away.