A Birthday Tribute. Addressed to Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandrina Victoria, On Attaining Her Eighteenth Year/A Birthday Tribute to Her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria
A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE
TO
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.
When has the day the loveliest of its hours?
It is the hour when morning breaks into day,
When dew-drops like the yet unfolded flowers,
And sunshine seems like hope upon its way.
Then soars the lark amid the azure, singing
A seraph's song, that is of heaven, not earth;
Then comes the wind, a fragrant wanderer, bringing
The breath of vales where violets have birth.
Which of the seasons in the year is fairest?
That when the spring first blushes into bloom;
There is the beauty, earliest and rarest,
When the world warms with colour and perfume.
Then are the meadows filled with pleasant voices,
Earth one bright promise what it is to be;
Then the green forest in its depths rejoices,
Flowers in the grass, and buds upon the tree.
Then the red rose reveals her future glory,
Breaking the green moss with one crimson trace;
So dawns the white—while old historic story
Tells now they wreath for England's royal race.
If thus so fair the spring-time and the morning,
But in the world of leaf and bud; how fair,
With all their early loveliness adorning,
Still lovelier in our human world they are.
Youth is around thee, ladye of the ocean,
Ocean that is thy kingdom and thy home,
Where not a heart but kindles with emotion,
Dreaming of honoured years that are to come.
What is the light of morning's rosy breaking,
To the young promise of that Royal mind?
What are the hopes of sunny spring‘s awaking,
To hopes which in thy future are inshrined?
Mighty the task, and glorious the fulfilling,
Duties that round thy future hours must be;
The east and west depend upon thy willing
Mistress art thou wherever rolls the sea.
Fair art thou, Princess, in thy youthful beauty
Thoughtful and pure, the spirit claims its part;
Gazing on thy young face, a nation’s duty
Bursts forth into the homage of the heart.
O'er thy high forehead is the soft hair braided;
Be never darker shadow on that brow!
Not yet one tint of youth’s sweet hues are faded;
The loveliness of promise lights thee now.
Around thee are a thousand hearts addressing
Prayer for thy sake to every power divine;
No lip that names thee, names without a blessing;
A nation's holiest wishes are all thine.
The present looks on thee with eyes
Of love, and joy, and enterprise;
They shine as shines a rising star,
That lights the unknown and the far.
To prophesy the future, cast
A glance upon thy country's past.
How has our England changed since first
The Roman Cæsar on her burst:
And something lingers with us still
Of their indomitable will.
Like theirs, our banners when unfurl'd
Have swept o'er half a conquer'd world.
No stranger power hath sought our coast,
But to bequeath their proudest boast.
Hengist and Horsa, Saxon kings,
On their proud galley's sweeping wings:
Lords of the banner and the breeze,
Gave us our empire o'er the seas;
Next came the Norman William's gallant power,
Those barons brought a noble dower
Of minstrel harp, and stainless sword,
High courtesy, and knightly word.
Then sea and land had done their best
To grace our Island of the West.
And never since hath foreign brand
Flash'd over our unconquer'd land;
Never hath rung the tocsin bell,
That other soils have known too well.
Sacred, inviolate, unstain'd,
Have England's fields and hearths remain'd.
Our victories have been won afar,
Our homes have only heard of war.
They gave thy name and since thy birth
Peace, dovelike, broodeth over earth:
Still be its shadow o'er thy throne—
Enough of laurels are our own.*[1]
With the golden sunbeam shining
Round the Abbey's towers,
Stands that stately pile enshrining
England's noblest hours,
There they rest its honour'd dead.
There the trophies of our annals
Fling their shade below,
Flags that in our English channels
Once announced a foe,
Now in triumph are they spread.
‘Tis no lesson taught in vain,
So would millions die again.
In those ancient chancels slumber
As within a shrine,
Men whom history loves to number
On her sacred line,
Men who leave themselves behind;
Statesmen holding yet dominion
With their fellow-men;
By the empire of opinion,
Ruling them again:
For immortal is the mind,
And a thoughtful truth maintains
Whatsoever ground it gains.
Not this the first time that our lion and land
Have own'd the soft sway of a woman's white hand;
She the last branch of the Tudor's proud line
Held empire—an omen of glory for thine:
The name of Elizabeth tells of an age
Alone in its splendour on history's page.
'Twas then the mind burst from its slumbers, and broke
The depth of its shade, the weight of its yoke;
And thoughts that lay dark, like the seeds in the earth,
Sprung up into varied and beautiful birth:
Whence, grown 'mid all changes of good and of ill,
We reap a rich harvest for garnering still.
For thoughts are like waves that come rushing to shore,
One breaks into many—is follow'd by more;
Then came the doom'd Spaniard, the last one, whose boast.
The white cliffs have echo'd that girdle our coast.
Each strong as a tower—and stern as a tomb,
The death-bearing ships sail'd the seas in their gloom;
Strange tortures were hid in the depths of each hold,
And wealth that might buy her—could England be sold;
Then came the proud queen to the shores of the sea,—
She gather'd around her the brave and the free;
Of all the Armada that darken'd the main,
No vessel return'd to its harbour again;
The maidens of Cadiz look'd out through their tears,
No banner their hand had embroider'd appears;
They are torn by the winds and the waves, or have been
Laid low at the feet of the proud island queen.
'Twas in a woman's reign uprose
That soul of enterprise,
Which since has borne our English flag
Through foreign seas and skies.
Few were the first adventurous barks
That plough'd the deep—but now
What breeze that bears St. George's cross,
What shore but knows our prow!
And more than glory, or than gold,
May British merchants say;
Look on what blessings infinite
Have follow'd on our way.
To civilize and to redeem
Has been our generous toil,
To sow the seeds of future good
In many a thankful soil.
Where'er to dark and pagan lands
Our path has been decreed,
Have we not brought the Christian's hope,
The Christian's holy creed!
'Tis from a woman's glorious reign
Our English isles may date
The honours of their after hours,
The triumphs of their state.
And yet how much remains to do,
How much is left behind!
Young daughter of a line of kings,
Much is to thee assign'd.
Great changes have been wrought since first
The Roman legions stood
Beneath the ancient oaks that form'd
The Druid's mystic wood.
There frown'd above the dank morass,
The forest whose long night
Of noisome and of tangled shade
Forgot the noontide's light.
Men crowded round the victim pyre
In worship vile as vain;
And God's own precious gift of life,
Was flung to him again.
We were the savages—of whom
We now can only hear;
The change has been the mighty work
Of many a patient year.
The progress of our race is mark'd
Wherever we can turn:
No more the gloomy woods extend,
No more the death-fires burn.
The village rises where once spread
Th' inhabitable moor:
And Sabbath-bells sweep on the wind,
The music of the poor.
The sun sinks down o'er myriad spires
That glisten in the ray,
As almost portions of that heaven
To which they point the way.
There is not a more lovely land
On all our lovely earth,
Than that, Victoria, which now gives
Its blessing on thy birth.
Such, youthful Ladye, is the outward seeming
Of the fair land whose trust is placed on thee;
Alas! too much is as the ivy gleaming
Round the worn branches of some ancient tree.
Farewell unto thy childhood, and forever;
Youth's careless hours dwell not around a throne;
The hallow'd purpose, and the high endeavour,
The onward-looking thought must be thine own.
An hour of moral contest is before thee,
Not the old combat of the shield and spear,
But to the azure heaven arching o'er thee,
Rises a nobler hope—a loftier fear.*[2]
Low in decay lies many an aged error,
From dust of mouldering falsehood springeth Truth;
The past is to the present as a mirror;
And Hope, to mankind has eternal youth.
Vast is the charge intrusted by high Heaven,
Heavy the weight upon that delicate hand;
Into thy keeping is the balance given,
Wherein is weigh'd the future of our land.
Around thee is much misery: want and sorrow
Lurk in the hidden places of our earth;
To-day how many tremble at to-morrow,
Life has to them been bitter from its birth.
Mark those pale children†[3]—cold and wan while basking
O'er embers mocking with their feeble glow:
The elder silent—but the youngest asking
For food the mother has not to bestow.
These are life's common scenes—thy regal dower
Were but a drop flung in a boundless sea;
But thou mayst lead the way—the pomp of power
Will make the careless many follow thee.
From glowing Ind to Huron's waters spreading
Extends the empire that our sword hath won,
There have our sails been peace and knowledge shedding,
Upon thy sceptre never sets the sun.
A nobler triumph still awaits thy winning,
"The mind's ethereal war is in its birth;
The Cross of Christ is on its way, beginning
Its glorious triumph o'er the darken'd earth.
Gods blessing be upon thee, Royal Maiden!
And be thy throne heaven's altar here below,
With sweet thanksgivings, and with honours laden,
Of moral victories o'er want and wo.
Glorious and happy be thy coming hours,
Young Daughter of old England’s Royal line!
As in an angels pathway spring up flowers,
So may a nation's blessing spring in thine."
Notes
- ↑ * "Enough of laurels are our own."—Conquest is the commencement of civilization; it is also its scourge. With us, the sail and the sword have gone together, and commerce has consolidated what was gained by war. We have now to civilize what we have subdued: it is ours to bestow knowledge, freedom, and faith. Education, settled laws, and Christianity must follow the course of our victories and our manufactures.
For us there yet remains
A nobler conquest far ;
We must pay back the past, the debt we owe :
Let us around dispense
Light, hope. intelligence,
Till blessings track our steps where'er we go.
O England, thine be the deliverer's meed,
Be thy great empire known
By hearts made all thine own,
Through thy free Laws and thy immortal Creed. - ↑ * "Rises a nobler hope—a loftier fear."—Human perfection is still a beautiful and unrealized dream; it has its encouragement in human progress. A higher and more generous purpose is now the stimulus to all efforts of improvement: our views are more enlightened, because more general; the many have taken the place of the few. In the earlier ages, science kept as secrets those discoveries, which now its chief object is to promulgate. Trade was fettered by monopolies, which it is the first step of commerce to shake off. Laws were rather privilege than protection, not what to-day admits them to be, the sacred barriers of universal right. Knowledge was solitary distinction, or secluded enjoyment; not, as now, to be gained by all, and to be used for all. It is to intellectual intercourse that we owe our advancement; intellect is the pioneer to improvement. We have still to hope, and to aspire. It is only by looking onwards that we can perceive the goal; It is only by looking upwards that we can see heaven.
- ↑ † "Mark those pale children."—If there be one condition in our land that demands assistance and sympathy, it is that of children of the poor.—
It is for childhood's hour to be
Life's fairy well, and bring
To life's worn, weary memory
The freshness of its spring.
But here the order is reversed,
And infancy, like age,
Knows of existence but its worst,
One dull and darken'd page.
Written with tears, and stamp'd with toil,
Crush'd from the earliest hour,
Weeds darkening on the bitter soil,
That never knew a flower.
Alas! to think upon a child
That has no childish days,
No careless play, no frolics wild,
No words of prayer and praise.
Man from the cradle, 'tis too soon
To earn their daily bread,
And heap the heat and toil of noon
Upon an infant's head.
To labour ere their strength be come,
Or starve—such is the doom
That makes of many an English home,
One long and living tomb.
This is no overcharged picture: many a cottage in our villages—many a court in our cities, attest its truth. Example is the influence of a sovereign; and royal sympathy will avail to draw that attention which is the harbinger of remedy. In the education of the poor lies the true preservative against the worst ills of want. The first steps towards this object must be taken by the rich; this brings the two classes together, and for their mutual benefit. Indifference is startled out of selfish indulgence—and ignorance awakened into hope. Instruction forms the habit, and lays open the resource—while the schemes that originated in pity will be matured by thought; for to effect the beneficial result, it is the mind that must direct the heart.