I would not curse your England, wise as slow, Just as unjust in deed. I can believe that from her heart may flow The truest human creed. She sounded one high call of Liberty That despots heard with dread; I know not what high purpose to be free Crowns yet her starry head. Do I but raise a ghost? Is England dead? Lies she in lands forlorn? Shall Kentish orchards never hear the tread Of eager life at morn? Is she but memories of old men and sad Since youth has left her side? Has that vast glory that you dreamed she had But perished crucified? England! Though all her vaunted heroes rise From Nile to Flanders red Calling you from the long, red sunset skies You shall remain still dead. You shall not touch her woods and flowers again, You shall not sail her Thames, You shall not see in her soft April rain The fairy diadems. She cannot honour you. You do not feel Her tears and pity deep. Though all her multitudes in homage kneel, That cannot break your sleep, That cannot give you back the dew of earth The light upon the sea, The soft, sweet ripple of your child?s first mirth? Your immortality. In every man there is a great, new world? Perhaps a glorious race. How can we tell the hero that war hurled To death bore not Christ?s face? How can we tell what nobler nations lie Now on the fields of France, What unborn masters of creation cry Through murdered, white romance? I only know you, brother of my blood, Have gone; and many a friend, Trampled and broken in the Flanders mud, Found Youth?s most bitter end. God! You are not yet one with the kind dust Before new war-horns blow And sleek-limbed statesmen in their halls break trust To tell of other woe. I speak as if you heard me, O my dear, From England?s far-off shore, As if that land fills me with such fear Held you not evermore. I live too much to feel that death must be, Though men make death to-day; I will not set the blame on Deity Of murder tunes they play. And yet you have not uttered one poor word While these harsh thoughts I weave. Silent as God! No murmur have I heard; ?Tis I, not you, who grieve. How should I move that vast eternity, Enough loud my cries and wild? No more am I regarded than the sea Regards a brawling child.