And mongrel peoples and untutored tongues,
Daring to hurl hatred and insolence
Broadcast against a treaty-keeping power,
Wisdom shall find in dire adversity.
VII.
Now rest we at the topmost arch of day,
And while, aloft along the sculptured clouds,
Alfred's high throne centres Antiquity
And all the valour of England's feudal reigns,
The flashing fires along the grim sea-walls
And bulwarks of Britannia's broadening zone
Send up a sacred flame around the towers
Of old Westminster. Here King Edward comes!
And Alexandra, queenly as when first
The magic of her charms captured the heart
Of England and turned every Saxon, Celt,
And even the Normans of us, into Danes.
Now they that may, shall to the Abbey go,
That they may say they saw King Edward crowned.
VIII.
Not always, worthily, has the crown been worn
In England; and not always has its light
Shone as a lode-star to the people's will;
But, from the sacred fane of Winchester
And Wessex, and the time of Ethelred,
And of Canute the Dane, to where the good
Saint Edward, the Confessor King—the great
Restorer of the Saxon line—laid well
The deep foundations of the Abbey walls,
The golden shaft of light from Alfred's crown
Held steady course; and Westminster became
The pledge of him who wrought rather for Church
Than State, yet builded better than he thought;
And here his canonized bones found fitting rest.
Here, Harold and the Norman kings were crowned;
Here, Edward brought the Coronation Stone;
And, whether from Scone or Egypt came the light
Thereof, the sun-light of King Alfred's crown,
And of the crown of the Victorian Age,
—7—
