Thus noting them in meads and marts It did not seem to me That my dear country with its hearts, Minds, yearnings, worse and better parts Had ended with the sea.
[of his native country;]
I further and further went anon, As such I still surveyed, And further yet--yea, on and on, And all the men I looked upon Had heart-strings fellow-made.
[or where his duties to his fellow-creatures end;]
I traced the whole terrestrial round, Homing the other side;Then said I, "What is there to bound My denizenship? It seems I have found Its scope to be world-wide."[nor who are his enemies]
I asked me: "Whom have I to fight, And whom have I to dare, And whom to weaken, crush, and blight?
My country seems to have kept in sight On my way everywhere."1913.
ENGLAND TO GERMANY IN 1914
"O England, may God punish thee!"
- Is it that Teuton genius flowers Only to breathe malignity Upon its friend of earlier hours?
- We have eaten your bread, you have eaten ours, We have loved your burgs, your pines' green moan, Fair Rhine-stream, and its storied towers;Your shining souls of deathless dowers Have won us as they were our own:
We have nursed no dreams to shed your blood, We have matched your might not rancorously, Save a flushed few whose blatant mood You heard and marked as well as we To tongue not in their country's key;But yet you cry with face aflame, "O England, may God punish thee!"And foul in onward history, And present sight, your ancient name.
Autumn 1914.
ON THE BELGIAN EXPATRIATION
I dreamt that people from the Land of Chimes Arrived one autumn morning with their bells, To hoist them on the towers and citadels Of my own country, that the musical rhymes Rung by them into space at meted times Amid the market's daily stir and stress, And the night's empty star-lit silentness, Might solace souls of this and kindred climes.
Then I awoke; and lo, before me stood The visioned ones, but pale and full of fear;From Bruges they came, and Antwerp, and Ostend, No carillons in their train. Foes of mad mood Had shattered these to shards amid the gear Of ravaged roof, and smouldering gable-end.