WILLELMUS VAN NASSAU

Yes! we confess it!‘ mong the sons of Fate,

Earth's great ones, thou art great!

As that tall peak which from her silver cone

Of maiden snow unstain'd

All but the bravest scares, and reigns alone

In glacier isolation: Thus wert thou,

With that pale steadfast brow,

Gaunt aquiline: Thy whole life one labouring breath,

Yet the strong soul untamed;

France bridled, England saved, thy task ere death!

— O day of triumph, when thy bloodless host

From Devon's russet coast

Through the fair capital of the garden-West,

And that, whose gracious spire

Like childhood's prayer springs heaven-ward unrepress'd,

To Thames march'd legion-like, and at their tread

The sullen despot fled,

And Law and Freedom fair,— so late restored,

And to so-perilous life,

While Stuart craft replaced the Usurper's sword,—

Broke forth, as sunshine from the breaking sky,

When vernal storm-wings fly!

That day was thine, great Chief, from sea to sea:

The whole land's welcome seem'd

The welcome of one man! a realm by thee

Deliver'd!— But the crowning hour of fame,

The zenith of a name

Is ours once only: and he, too just, too stern,

Too little Englishman,

A nation's gratitude did not care to earn,

On wider aims, not worthier, set:— A soul

Immured in self-control;

Saving the thankless in their own despite:—

Then turning with a gasp

Of joy, to his own land by native right;

Changing the Hall of Rufus and the Keep

Of Windsor's terraced steep

For Guelderland horizons, silvery-blue;

The green deer-twinkling glades,

And long, long, avenues of the stately Loo.