Stars trembled in broad heaven, faint with pity. An hour to dawn I looked. Beside the trees Wet mist shaped other trees that branching rose, Covering the woods and putting out the stars. There was no murmur on the seas, No wind blew--only the wandering air that grows With dawn, then murmurs, sighs, And dies. The mist climbed slowly, putting out the stars, And the earth trembled when the stars were gone; And moving strangely everywhere upon The trembling earth, thickened the watery mist.
And for a time the holy things are veiled. England's wise thoughts are swords; her quiet hours Are trodden underfoot like wayside flowers, And every English heart is England's wholly. In starless night A serious passion streams the heaven with light. A common beating is in the air-- The heart of England throbbing everywhere. And all her roads are nerves of noble thought, And all her people's brain is but her brain; And all her history, less her shame, Is part of her requickened consciousness. Her courage rises clean again.
Even in victory there hides defeat; The spirit's murdered though the body survives, Except the cause for which a people strives Burn with no covetous, foul heat. Fights she against herself who infamously draws The sword against man's secret spiritual laws, But thou, England, because a bitter heel Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will, The conscience of the world, For this, England, art risen, and shalt fight Purely through long profoundest night,
Making their quarrel thine who are grieved like thee; And (if to thee the stars yield victory) Tempering their hate of the great foe that hurled Vainly her strength against the conscience of the world.
I looked again, or dreamed I looked, and saw The stars again and all their peace again. The moving mist had gone, and shining still The moon went high and pale above the hill. Not now those lights were trembling in the vast Ways of the nervy heaven, nor trembled earth: Profound and calm they gazed as the soft-shod hours passed. And with less fear (not with less awe, Remembering, England, all the blood and pain) How look, I cried, you stern and solitary stars On these disastrous wars!
The shadow of the lantern on the wall, The lantern hanging from the twisted beam, The eye that sees the lantern, shadow and all.