WHAT constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
...
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From “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Canto VI.
BREATHES there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart has ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel... -
There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o’er all the world beside,
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons imparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth:
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting... -
Our Father Land! and wouldst thou know
Why we should call it Father Land?
It is that Adam here below
Was made of earth by Nature’s hand;
And he our father, made of earth,
Hath peopled earth on every hand;
And we, in memory of his birth,
Do call our country Father Land.At first, in Eden’s bowers, they say,
No... -
From “The Traveller”
AS some lone miser visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o’er;
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,
Pleased with each good that heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall... -
“o World-god, give me Wealth!” the Egyptian cried.
His prayer was granted. High as heaven behold
Palace and Pyramid; the brimming tide
Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold.
Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet,
World-circling traffic roared through mart and street,
His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings enshrined
... -
From “The Timepiece”: “The Task,” Book. II.
ENGLAND, with all thy faults, I love thee still,—
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed
With dripping rains, or withered by a frost,
I would not yet... -
From “Alfred,” Act II. Sc. 5.
WHEN Britain first, at Heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!
For Britons never will be slaves.The nations not so blest as thee
Must in their turns to tyrants fall;... -
From “The White Company”
WHAT of the bow?
The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;
So men who are free
Love the old yew-tree
And the land where the yew-tree grows.What of the cord?
The cord was made in England:
A rough cord, a tough cord,
A... -
When mighty roast beef was the Englishman’s food,
It ennobled our hearts, and enrichèd our blood;
Our soldiers were brave, and our courtiers were good.
O, the Roast Beef of old England,
And O, the old English Roast Beef!But since we have learned from effeminate France
To eat their ragouts, as well as to dance,
We...