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The Commonweal

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Eight hundred years and twenty-one

Have shone and sunken since the land

Whose name is freedom bore such brand

As marks a captive, and the sun

Beheld her fettered hand.

But ere dark time had shed as rain

Or sown on sterile earth as seed

That bears no fruit save tare and weed

An age and half an age again,

She rose on Runnymede.

III

Out of the shadow, starlike still,

She rose up radiant in her right,

And spake, and put to fear and flight

The lawless rule of awless will

That pleads no right save might.

Nor since hath England ever borne

The burden laid on subject lands,

The rule that curbs and binds all hands

Save one, and marks for servile scorn

The heads it bows and brands.

A commonweal arrayed and crowned

With gold and purple, girt with steel

At need, that foes must fear or feel,

We find her, as our fathers found,

Earth's lordliest commonweal.

And now that fifty years are flown

Since in a maiden's hand the sign

Of empire that no seas confine

First as a star to seaward shone,

We see their record shine.

VII

A troubled record, foul and fair,

A simple record and serene,

Inscribes for praise a blameless queen,

For praise and blame an age of care

And change and ends unseen.

VIII

Hope, wide of eye and wild of wing,

Rose with the sundawn of a reign

Whose grace should make the rough ways plain,

And fill the worn old world with spring,

And heal its heart of pain.

Peace was to be on earth; men's hope

Was holier than their fathers had,

Their wisdom not more wise than glad:

They saw the gates of promise ope,

And heard what love's lips bade.

Love armed with knowledge, winged and wise,

Should hush the wind of war, and see,

They said, the sun of days to be

Bring round beneath serener skies

A stormless jubilee.

Time, in the darkness unbeholden

That hides him from the sight of fear

And lets but dreaming hope draw near,

Smiled and was sad to hear such golden

Strains hail the all-golden year.

XII

Strange clouds have risen between, and wild

Red stars of storm that lit the abyss

Wherein fierce fraud and violence kiss

And mock such promise as beguiled

The fiftieth year from this.

XIII

War upon war, change after change,

Hath shaken thrones and towers to dust,

And hopes austere and faiths august

Have watched in patience stern and strange

Men's works unjust and just.

XIV

As from some Alpine watch-tower's portal

Night, living yet, looks forth for dawn,

So from time's mistier mountain lawn

The spirit of man, in trust immortal,

Yearns toward a hope withdrawn.

The morning comes not, yet the night

Wanes, and men's eyes win strength to see

Where twilight is, where light shall be

When conquered wrong and conquering right

Acclaim a world set free.

XVI

Calm as our mother-land, the mother

Of faith and freedom, pure and wise,

Keeps watch beneath unchangeful skies,

When hath she watched the woes of other

Strange lands with alien eyes?

XVII

Calm as she stands alone, what nation

Hath lacked an alms from English hands?

What exiles from what stricken lands

Have lacked the shelter of the station

Where higher than all she stands?

XVIII

Though time discrown and change dismantle

The pride of thrones and towers that frown,

How should they bring her glories down'

The sea cast round her like a mantle,

The sea-cloud like a crown?

XIX

The sea, divine as heaven and deathless,

Is hers, and none but only she

Hath learnt the sea's word, none but we

Her children hear in heart the breathless

Bright watchword of the sea.

Heard not of others, or misheard

Of many a land for many a year,

The watchword Freedom fails not here

Of hearts that witness if the word

Find faith in England's ear.

XXI

She, first to love the light, and daughter

Incarnate of the northern dawn,

She, round whose feet the wild waves fawn

When all their wrath of warring water

Sounds like a babe's breath drawn,

XXII

How should not she best know, love best,

And best of all souls understand

The very soul of freedom, scanned

Far off, sought out in darkling quest

By men at heart unmanned?

XXIII

They climb and fall, ensnared, enshrouded,

By mists of words and toils they set

To take themselves, till fierce regret

Grows mad with shame, and all their clouded

Red skies hang sunless yet.

XXIV

But us the sun, not wholly risen

Nor equal now for all, illumes

With more of light than cloud that looms;

Of light that leads forth souls from prison

And breaks the seals of tombs.

XXV

Did not her breasts who reared us rear

Him who took heaven in hand, and weighed

Bright world with world in balance laid?

What Newton's might could make not clear

Hath Darwin's might not made?

XXVI

The forces of the dark dissolve,

The doorways of the dark are broken:

The word that casts out night is spoken,

And whence the springs of things evolve

Light born of night bears token.

XXVII

She, loving light for light's sake only,

And truth for only truth's, and song

For song's sake and the sea's, how long

Hath she not borne the world her lonely

Witness of right and wrong?

XXVIII

From light to light her eyes imperial

Turn, and require the further light,

More perfect than the sun's in sight,

Till star and sun seem all funereal

Lamps of the vaulted night.

XXIX

She gazes till the strenuous soul

Within the rapture of her eyes

Creates or bids awake, arise,

The light she looks for, pure and whole

And worshipped of the wise.

XXX

Such sons are hers, such radiant hands

Have borne abroad her lamp of old,

Such mouths of honey-dropping gold

Have sent across all seas and lands

Her fame as music rolled.

XXXI

As music made of rolling thunder

That hurls through heaven its heart sublime,

Its heart of joy, in charging chime,

So ring the songs that round and under

Her temple surge and climb.

XXXII

A temple not by men's hands builded,

But moulded of the spirit, and wrought

Of passion and imperious thought;

With light beyond all sunlight gilded,

Whereby the sun seems nought.

XXXIII

Thy shrine, our mother, seen for fairer

Than even thy natural face, made fair

With kisses of thine April air

Even now, when spring thy banner-bearer

Took up thy sign to bear;

XXXIV

Thine annual sign from heaven's own arch

Given of the sun's hand into thine,

To rear and cheer each wildwood shrine

But now laid waste by wild-winged March,

March, mad with wind like wine.

XXXV

From all thy brightening downs whereon

The windy seaward whin-flower shows

Blossom whose pride strikes pale the rose

Forth is the golden watchword gone

Whereat the world's face glows.

XXXVI

Thy quickening woods rejoice and ring

Till earth seems glorious as the sea:

With yearning love too glad for glee

The world's heart quivers toward the spring

As all our hearts toward thee.

XXXVII

Thee, mother, thee, our queen, who givest

Assurance to the heavens most high

And earth whereon her bondsmen sigh

That by the sea's grace while thou livest

Hope shall not wholly die.

XXXVIII

That while thy free folk hold the van

Of all men, and the sea-spray shed

As dew more heavenly on thy head

Keeps bright thy face in sight of man,

Man's pride shall drop not dead.

XXXIX

A pride more pure than humblest prayer,

More wise than wisdom born of doubt,

Girds for thy sake men's hearts about

With trust and triumph that despair

And fear may cast not out.

Despair may wring men's hearts, and fear

Bow down their heads to kiss the dust,

Where patriot memories rot and rust,

And change makes faint a nation's cheer,

And faith yields up her trust.

XLI

Not here this year have true men known,

Not here this year may true men know,

That brand of shame-compelling woe

Which bids but brave men shrink or groan

And lays but honour low.

XLII

The strong spring wind blows notes of praise,

And hallowing pride of heart, and cheer

Unchanging, toward all true men here

Who hold the trust of ancient days

High as of old this year.

XLIII

The days that made thee great are dead;

The days that now must keep thee great

Lie not in keeping of thy fate;

In thine they lie, whose heart and head

Sustain thy charge of state.

XLIV

No state so proud, no pride so just,

The sun, through clouds at sunrise curled

Or clouds across the sunset whirled,

Hath sight of, nor has man such trust

As thine in all the world.

XLV

Each hour that sees the sunset's crest

Make bright thy shores ere day decline

Sees dawn the sun on shores of thine,

Sees west as east and east as west

On thee their sovereign shine.

XLVI

The sea's own heart must needs wax proud

To have borne the world a child like thee.

What birth of earth might ever be

Thy sister? Time, a wandering cloud,

Is sunshine on thy sea.

XLVII

Change mars not her; and thee, our mother,

What change that irks or moves thee mars?

What shock that shakes? what chance that jars?

Time gave thee, as he gave none other,

A station like a star's.

XLVIII

The storm that shrieks, the wind that wages

War with the wings of hopes that climb

Too high toward heaven in doubt sublime,

Assail not thee, approved of ages

The towering crown of time.

XLIX

Toward thee this year thy children turning

With souls uplift of changeless cheer

Salute with love that casts out fear,

With hearts for beacons round thee burning,

The token of this year.

With just and sacred jubilation

Let earth sound answer to the sea

For witness, blown on winds as free,

How England, how her crowning nation,

Acclaims this jubilee.