The shadow of death made substance, the present and visible spirit of night,

Came, shaped as a waxing or waning moon that rose with the fall of day,

To the channel where couches the Lion in guard of the gate of the lustrous bay.

Fair England, sweet as the sea that shields her, and pure as the sea from stain,

Smiled, hearing hardly for scorn that stirred her the menace of saintly Spain.

[Pg 191]

III

I

"They that ride over ocean wide with hempen bridle and horse of tree,"

How shall they in the darkening day of wrath and anguish and fear go free?

How shall these that have curbed the seas not feel his bridle who made the sea?

God shall bow them and break them now: for what is man in the Lord God's sight?

Fear shall shake them, and shame shall break, and all the noon of their pride be night:

These that sinned shall the ravening wind of doom bring under, and judgment smite.

England broke from her neck the yoke, and rent the fetter, and mocked the rod:

Shrines of old that she decked with gold she turned to dust, to the dust she trod:

What is she, that the wind and sea should fight beside her, and war with God?

Lo, the cloud of his ships that crowd her channel's inlet with storm sublime,

Darker far than the tempests are that sweep the skies of her northmost clime;

Huge and dense as the walls that fence the secret darkness of unknown time.

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