What of the Village, where our blood
Was brewed by sires, half man, half brute,
In vessels of wild womanhood,
From blood of Saxon, Celt and Jute?

What are its gifts, this Harvest Home
Of English tilth and English cost,
Where fell the hamlet won by Rome
And rose the city that she lost?
O! terrible and grand and strange
Beyond all phantasy that gleams
When Hope, asleep, sees radiant Change
Come to her through the halls of dreams!

A heaving sea of life, that beats
Like England's heart of pride to-day,
And up from roaring miles of streets
Flings on the roofs its human spray;
And fluttering miles of flags aflow,
And cannon's voice, and boom of bell,
And seas of fire to-night, as though
A hundred cities flamed and fell;

While, under many a fair festoon
And flowering crescent, set ablaze
With all the dyes that English June
Can lend to deck a day of days,
And past where mart and palace rise,
And shrine and temple lift their spears,
Below five million misted eyes