THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY

THE knightliest of the knightly race

That, since the days of old,
Have kept the lamp of chivalry
Alight in hearts of gold;
The kindliest of the kindly band
That, rarely hating ease,

Yet rode with Spotswood round the land,
And Raleigh round the seas;

Who climbed the blue Virginian hills

Against embattled foes,

And planted there, in valleys fair,

The lily and the rose;

Whose fragrance lives in many lands,

Whose beauty stars the earth,

And lights the hearths of happy homes

With loveliness and worth.

We thought they slept!-the sons who kept
The names of noble sires,-

And slumbered while the darkness crept
Around their vigil-fires;

But aye the "Golden Horseshoe" knights

Their old Dominion keep,

Whose foes have found enchanted ground,

But not a knight asleep!

Francis Orray Ticknor [1822-1874]

AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN

ALL hail! thou noble land,

Our Fathers' native soil!
Oh, stretch thy mighty hand,

Gigantic grown by toil,

O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore!

For thou, with magic might,

Canst reach to where the light
Of Phoebus travels bright

The world o'er!

The Genius of our clime,

From his pine-embattled steep,
Shall hail the guest sublime;

While the Tritons of the deep

With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim
Then let the world combine,-

O'er the main our naval line,
Like the milky-way shall shine,
Bright in fame!

Though ages long have passed

Since our Fathers left their home,
Their pilot in the blast,

O'er untravelled seas to roam,

Yet lives the blood of England in our veins!
And shall we not proclaim

That blood of honest fame
Which no tyranny can tame
By its chains?

While the language free and bold
Which the bard of Avon sung,
In which our Milton told

How the vault of heaven rung
When Satan, blasted, fell with his host;-
While this, with reverence meet,
Ten thousand echoes greet,

From rock to rock repeat

Round our coast;

While the manners, while the arts,

That mould a nation's soul,
Still cling around our hearts,--
Between let Ocean roll,

Our joint communion breaking with the Sun:
Yet, still, from either beach

The voice of blood shall reach,

More audible than speech,

"We are One!"

Washington Allston [1779–1843]

TO ENGLAND

I

LEAR and Cordelia! 'twas an ancient tale

Before thy Shakespeare gave it deathless fame;
The times have changed, the moral is the same.
So like an outcast, dowerless and pale,
Thy daughter went; and in a foreign gale

Spread her young banner, till its sway became
A wonder to the nations. Days of shame
Are close upon thee; prophets raise their wail.
When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand
Points his long spear across the narrow sea,-
"Lo! there is England!" when thy destiny.
Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand
Weak, helpless, mad, a by-word in the land,-
God grant thy daughter a Cordelia be!

II

Stand, thou great bulwark of man's liberty!
Thou rock of shelter, rising from the wave,
Sole refuge to the overwearied brave

Who planned, arose, and battled to be free,
Fell, undeterred, then sadly turned to thee,-
Saved the free spirit from their country's grave,
To rise again, and animate the slave,
When God shall ripen all things. Britons, ye
Who guard the sacred outpost, not in vain

Hold your proud peril!

Keep watch and ward!

Freemen undefiled,
Let battlements be piled

Around your cliffs; fleets marshalled, till the main

Sink under them; and if your courage wane,

Through force or fraud, look westward to your child!

George Henry Boker [1823-1890]

AMERICA

NOR force nor fraud shall sunder us! Oh ye
Who north or south, on east or western land,
Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God

For God; Oh ye who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand

Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance-parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered,-children brave and free
Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an Empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,

Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.

Sydney Dobell [1824-1874]

TO AMERICA

ON A PROPOSED ALLIANCE BETWEEN TWO GREAT NATIONS

WHAT is the voice I hear

On the winds of the western sea? Sentinel, listen from out Cape Clear And say what the voice may be.

'Tis a proud free people calling loud to a people proud

and free.

And it says to them: "Kinsmen, hail;

We severed have been too long.

Now let us have done with a worn-out tale-

The tale of ancient wrong

And our friendship last long as our love doth last, and be

stronger than death is strong."

Answer them, sons of the self-same race,
And blood of the self-same clan;

Let us speak with each other face to face

And answer as man to man,

And loyally love and trust each other as none but free

men can.

Now fling them out to the breeze,

Shamrock, Thistle, and Rose,

And the Star-spangled Banner unfurl with these—

A message to friends and foes

Wherever the sails of peace are seen and wherever the

war wind blows

A message to bond and thrall to wake,

For whenever we come, we twain,

The throne of the tyrant shall rock and quake,

And his menace be void and vain,

For you are lords of a strong land and we are lords of the main.

Yes, this is the voice of the bluff March gale;

We severed have been too long,

But now we have done with a worn-out tale

The tale of an ancient wrong

And our friendship shall last as love doth last and be

stronger than death is strong.

Alfred Austin (1835-1913]

SAXON GRIT

WORN with the battle of Stamford town,
Fighting the Norman by Hastings bay,
Harold the Saxon's sun went down,

While the acorns were falling one autumn day.
Then the Norman said, "I am lord of the land:
By tenor of conquest here I sit;

I will rule you now with the iron hand;'

But he had not thought of the Saxon grit.

He took the land, and he took the men,

And burnt the homesteads from Trent to Tyne,
Made the freemen serfs by a stroke of the pen,
Eat up the corn and drank the wine,

And said to the maiden, pure and fair,
"You shall be my leman, as is most fit,
Your Saxon churl may rot in his lair;"

But he had not measured the Saxon grit.

To the merry greenwood went bold Robin Hood, With his strong-hearted yeomanry ripe for the fray, Driving the arrow into the marrow

Of all the proud Normans who came in his

way;