I

Sailor William is dead. And now

Toll the great bells disconsolate.

Let the maiden have time for tears

Ere you set on her gentle brow

England's glittering crown of state.

Heavy burden for eighteen years.

Grant the maiden some weeping space

Ere on her youthful brow you place

England's crown.

Once her stately head it presses,

Fifty years it must rest on her tresses

Till their brown

Turns to white beneath King Time's caresses —

Grant her weeping space.

Set the crown on the maiden's brow,

And silence the bells disconsolate.

Peal! Ye loud joy-bells, now;

Over city and wold let your echoes reverberate.

Peal! for the crowning of smiles and the death of tears,

Peal! for the crowning of hopes and the death of fears,

Peal! for a Queen who shall rule us for fifty years.

The maiden is crowned with her glorious crown,

Heavy with care;

Yet it shall never burden her down

Into despair.

We will watch over her with our love,

And our loyalty prove.

We will bear, each, his share

Of the worry, grief, and pain

That may seek to mar her reign.

Blow! ye silvery bugles, over the sunny land,

Our Queen has yielded to love.

Ring out with merry clangor, O ye bells!

Ye mountains! give the laughing bells reply.

Hark! how the joyous tumult sinks and swells,

And beats against the sky

In melody!

Mark how the billows of the mighty sea

Toss their white arms in glee,

And race along the strand,

Joining their voices with the symphony!

Our Queen has yielded to love.

Blow! silvery bugles blow!

That all may know.

Toll! toll! ye deep-mouthed bells,

Answer! each thundering gun.

Your cadence sadly tells

Of a great life-work done.

Death rules this changing earth,

Through royal halls he stalks,

And with an awful mirth

Man's noblest efforts mocks.

He stills the busy brain,

Tears loving souls apart,

And leaves alone to reign

A Queen with empty heart.

Upon her lonely throne

She sits, and ever weeps,

For him who, once her own,

Now wed to heaven sleeps.

Albert has fallen, conquered by Death's dart,

A shadow lies across her anguished heart.

She dwells in loneliness that none can gauge;

In grief that only heaven can assuage.

She trembles and her soul would fain depart,

And beats with tireless wings against its cage.

Oh! live for us, dear Queen,

Thou who for years hast been

Our leader in all good,

Live! Live for us, O Queen!

Ring! ye loud bells, in deep, triumphal tone,

And bind a zone

Around this earth of glorious melody,

Till land and sea

Awaken and, rejoicing, answer ye.

Ah! noble Queen! who lookst around thee now

On this great nation.

Thy life, since first the circlet touched thy brow,

Was consecration

Of self to us. Through half a century

From darkness into light we followed thee.

The poet, patriot, warrior, statesman, sage

Have given thee service long,

Lending their fiery youth and thoughtful age

To make thy sceptre strong,

And in the never-ending march of man

To higher things, still England leads the van.

In fifty years what change! The world is bound

In close communion, and a sentence flies

O'er half the earth ere yet the voice's sound

Upon the calm air dies.

Behold at England's feet her offspring pour

Their bounteous store;

To her each yields

The first fruits of its virgin fields;

Each country throws

Its hospitable portals open wide

To the great tide

That from the dense-thronged mother country flows.

New homes arise

By rivers once unknown, among whose reeds

The wild fowl fed, but now no longer dwells.

No more the bison feeds

Upon the prairie, for the once drear plain

Laughs in the sun and waves its golden grain.

By a slender chain

Ocean is linked to ocean, and the hum

Of labor in the wilderness foretells

The greatness of a nation yet to come.

In Southern seas

Another nation grows by slow degrees,

In dreamy India, under tropic sun,

Two hundred millions own an Empress’ sway,

And day by day.

New territories won

Shed lustre on our Queen's half century.