free-verse96 lines

Astr'a Victrix

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

England, elect of time,

By freedom sealed sublime,

And constant as the sun that saw thy dawn

Outshine upon the sea

His own in heaven, to be

A light that night nor day should see withdrawn,

If song may speak not now thy praise,

Fame writes it higher than song may soar or faith may gaze.

Dark months of months beheld

Hope thwarted, crossed, and quelled,

And heard the heartless hounds of hatred bay

Aloud against thee, glad

As now their souls are sad

Who see their hope in hatred pass away

And wither into shame and fear

And shudder down to darkness, loth to see or hear.

Nought now they hear or see

That speaks or shows not thee

Triumphant; not as empires reared of yore,

The imperial commonweal

That bears thy sovereign seal

And signs thine orient as thy natural shore

Free, as no sons but thine may stand,

Steers lifeward ever, guided of thy pilot hand.

Fear, masked and veiled by fraud,

Found shameful time to applaud

Shame, and bow down thy banner towards the dust,

And call on godly shame

To desecrate thy name

And bid false penitence abjure thy trust:

Till England's heart took thought at last,

And felt her future kindle from her fiery past.

Then sprang the sunbright fire

High as the sun, and higher

Than strange men's eyes might watch it undismayed:

But winds athwart it blew

Storm, and the twilight grew

Darkness awhile, an unenduring shade:

And all base birds and beasts of night

Saw no more England now to fear, no loathsome light.

All knaves and slaves at heart

Who, knowing thee what thou art,

Abhor thee, seeing what none save here may see,

Strong freedom, taintless truth,

Supreme in ageless youth,

Howled all their hate and hope aloud at thee

While yet the wavering wind of strife

Bore hard against her sail whose freight is hope and life.

And now the quickening tide

That brings back power and pride

To faith and love whose ensign is thy name

Bears down the recreant lie

That doomed thy name to die,

Sons, friends, and foes behold thy star the same

As when it stood in heaven a sun

And Europe saw no glory left her sky save one.

And now, as then she saw,

She sees with shamefast awe

How all unlike all slaves and tyrants born

Where bondmen champ the bit

And anarchs foam and flit,

And day mocks day, and year puts year to scorn,

Our mother bore us, English men,

Ashamed of shame and strong in mercy, now as then.

We loosed not on these knaves

Their scourge-tormented slaves:

We held the hand that fain had risen to smite

The torturer fast, and made

Justice awhile afraid,

And righteousness forego her ruthless right:

We warred not even with these as they;

We bade not them they preyed on make of them their prey.

All murderous fraud that lurks

In hearts where hell's craft works

Fought, crawled, and slew in darkness: they that died

Dreamed not of foes too base

For scorn to grant them grace:

Men wounded, women, children at their side,

Had found what faith in fiends may live:

And yet we gave not back what righteous doom would give.

No false white flag that fawns

On faith till murder dawns

Blood-red from hell-black treason's heart of hate

Left ever shame's foul brand

Seared on an English hand:

And yet our pride vouchsafes them grace too great

For other pride to dream of: scorn

Strikes retribution silent as the stars at morn.

And now the living breath

Whose life puts death to death,

Freedom, whose name is England, stirs and thrills

The burning darkness through

Whence fraud and slavery grew,

We scarce may mourn our dead whose fame fulfils

The record where her foes have read

That earth shall see none like her born ere earth be dead.