IV

Be that your chief of mourning--that!--
ENGLAND, O Mother, and you,
The daughter Kingdoms born and reared
Of ENGLAND'S travail and sweet blood;
And never will you lands,
The live Earth over and round,
Wherethrough for sixty royal and radiant years
Her drum-tap made the dawns
English--Never will you
So fittingly and well have paid your debt
Of grief and gratitude to the souls
That sink in ENGLAND'S harness into the dream:
'I die for ENGLAND'S sake, and it is well':
As now to this valiant, wonderful piece of earth,
To which the assembling nations bare the head,
And bend the knee,
In absolute veneration--once your Queen.

Sceptre and orb and crown,
High ensigns of a sovranty empaling
The glory and love and praise of a whole half-world,
Fall from her, and, preceding, she departs
Into the old, indissoluble Peace.