The Charge of the Light Brigade and Other Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Author:Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486113609
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

VII

A people’s voice ! we are a people yet.

Tho’ all men else their nobler dreams forget,

Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers,

Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set

His Briton in blown seas and storming showers,

We have a voice with which to pay the debt

Of boundless love and reverence and regret

To those great men who fought, and kept it ours.

And keep it ours, O God, from brute control !

O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul

Of Europe, keep our noble England whole,

And save the one true seed of freedom sown

Betwixt a people and their ancient throne,

That sober freedom out of which there springs

Our loyal passion for our temperate kings !

For, saving that, ye help to save mankind

Till public wrong be crumbled into dust,

And drill the raw world for the march of mind,

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.

But wink no more in slothful overtrust.

Remember him who led your hosts;

He bade you guard the sacred coasts.

Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall;

His voice is silent in your council-hall

For ever; and whatever tempests lour

For ever silent; even if they broke

In thunder, silent; yet remember all

He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke;

Who never sold the truth to serve the hour,

Nor palter’d with Eternal God for power;

Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow

Thro’ either babbling world of high and low;

Whose life was work, whose language rife

With rugged maxims hewn from life;

Who never spoke against a foe;

Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke

All great self-seekers trampling on the right.

Truth-teller was our England’s Alfred named;

Truth-lover was our English Duke;

Whatever record leap to light

He never shall be shamed.

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