The Widow's Cloak

There's a widow Lady worthy of a word of kindly tone
From all who love good Neighbourhood, and true allegiance own
To motherly Humanity in love and sorrow tried,
Who lives some season of the year
Adown Dee-side.

To her sister in the cottage, to the Highland hut, comes she;
She takes the old wife by the hand, she shares her cup of tea;
She loves the lowly people: years of life have taught her well,
In God's great household, they, the bulk
Of inmates, dwell.

She loves the Highland nature; and, the Dalriad deeps beyond,
To every pressure of her palm the Irish hearts respond.
What though we seldom see her St. Patrick's Hall within,
The Gael her presence yearly cheers
Are kith and kin.

The Castle of Balmoral stands proudly on its hill;
This simple widow Lady has a finer castle still,—
Where hill-big keep and chapel soar up the southern sky,
Above the woods of Windsor,
And Thames swells by.

The iron castles on the shore that sentry Portsea beach—
The iron castles on the sea, their guns a shipload each
That ride at Spithead anchorage—the ordnance great and small,
Of Woolwich and of London Tower,
She owns them all.

Ten thousands are her men-at-call, that ride in golden spurs;
The citied margins of the seas, half round the world, are hers;
The mightiest monarchs fain to sit at her right hand are seen:
For she's the Queen of the Three-Joined-Realm.
God save the Queen!

And sons she has, good plenty, and daughters, if need were
For issue of the lawful line, to sit Saint Edward's chair:
But God has filled the quiver; and, with countenance elate,
He, next in awful right, may speak
His foe in gate.

With Denmark's gracious daughter, at head of that array—
Our darling, ever welcome as flowers that come in May—

i God, shield the precious creature beneath Thy angels'
'wings,
And send her lovely nature
Down lines of Kings!

Fine men the princely brothers; and time is coming, when.
By sea and land, they all may show that they are manly men;
Alert, at clear-eyed Honour's call, to give their duty-day
Afield—on deck—in battery—
Come who come may.

Now mark you. Kings and Emperors who rule this peopled ball
That nourishes us, man and beast, and graveward bears us all.
The blood of horses and of men, and lives of men, will lie
Main heavy on their souls that break
Her amity.

Victoria's sheltering mantle is over India spread;
Who dare to touch the garment's hem, look out for men in red:
Look out for gun and tumbril a-crash through mound and hedge.
For shot and shell and Sheffield shear—
Steel, point and edge!

The fires are banked; in road and port the seaman-heart swells large;
The horses from the Irish fields are champing for the charge;
Stand back! keep off'! the changing cheek of Peace has lost its smile,
And grave her eyes, and grave her prayer,
To heaven the while :—

"Maker, Preserver of Mankind, and Saviour that Thou art,
Assuage the rage of wrathful men; bring down their haughty heart;
Or, if not so Thy holy will—suppress the idle sigh,
And God Sabaoth be the name
We know Thee by!"