ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONA- 
 TION OF KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF 
 THE CORONATION OF 
 KING EDWARD VII 
 
 BY WILLIAM WATSON 
 
 JOHN LANE • THE BODLEY HEAD 
 LONDON &' NEW YORK • MDCCCCII
 
 PR 
 
 03 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 JOHN LANE 
 
 190a 
 
 FUBUSHKRS' PRINTING COMPANT 
 
 npvr YORK u. s. a
 
 I
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 SIRE, we have looked on many and mighty 
 things 
 In these eight hundred summers of renown 
 Since the Gold Dragon of the Wessex Kings 
 On Hastings field went down ; 
 And slowly in the ambience of this crown 
 Have many crowns been gathered, till, to-day, 
 How many peoples crown thee, who shall say ? 
 Time, and the ocean, and some fostering star, 
 
 [7]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 In high cabal have made us what we are. 
 Who stretch one hand to Huron's bearded pines. 
 And one on Kashmir's snowy shoulder lay. 
 And round the streaming of whose raiment shines 
 The iris of the Australasian spray. 
 For waters have connived at our designs. 
 And winds have plotted with us — and behold. 
 Kingdom in kingdom, sway in oversway. 
 
 [9]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Dominion fold in fold : 
 
 Like to that immemorial regal stone 
 
 Thy namesake from the northland reft away. 
 
 Symbol of sovereignty and spoil of fray, 
 
 And closed in England's throne. 
 
 So wide of girth this little cirque of gold, 
 
 So great we are, and old. 
 
 Proud from the ages are we come, O King; 
 
 ["]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Proudly, as fits a nation that hath now 
 So many dawns and suhsets on her brow. 
 This duteous heart we bring. 
 
 [^3]
 
 II
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 The kings thy far forerunners; he that came 
 
 And smote us into greatness; he whose fame, 
 
 In dark armipotence and ivied pride. 
 
 Towers above Conway's tide. 
 
 And where Carnarvon ponders on the sea; 
 
 He, that adventurous name. 
 
 Who left at Agincourt the knightly head 
 
 Of France and all its charging plumes overthrown. 
 
 [^7]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 But hath with royal-hearted chivalry 
 In Shakespeare's conquests merged at last his own; 
 And she, a queen, but fashioned king-like, she 
 Before whose prows, before whose tempests, fled 
 Spain on the ruining night precipitately ; 
 And that worn face, in camps and councils bred. 
 The guest who brought us law and liberty 
 Raised well-nigh from the dead; 
 
 ['9]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Yea, she herself, in whose immediate stead 
 Thou standest, in the shadow of her soul; 
 All these, O King, from their seclusion dread. 
 And guarded palace of eternity. 
 Mix-in thy pageant with phantasmal tread. 
 Hear the long waves of acclamation roll. 
 And with yet mightier silence marshal thee 
 To the awful throne thou hast inherited. 
 
 [^']
 
 Ill
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 High on the noon and summit of the year 
 Thou art anointed king. 
 
 Nature disdains not braveries: why should we 
 The sombre foil to all her splendours be ? 
 Let London rustle with rich apparelling, 
 And all the ways, with festal faces lined. 
 Casement and coign and fluttering balcony, 
 Wave welcome on the wind. 
 
 [^5]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Now the loud land flames with imperial gear. 
 And life itself, so late in hues austere 
 And the cold reign of iron custom bound, 
 Puts off its gray subjection, and is here 
 One moment throned and crowned. 
 Now the long glories prance and triumph by: 
 And now the pomps have passed, and we depart 
 Each to the peace or strife of his own heart: 
 
 C^7]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 And now the day whose bosom was so high 
 Sinks billowing down: and twilight sorceries 
 
 change 
 Into remote and strange 
 What is most known and nigh: 
 And changelessly the river sends his sigh 
 Down leagues of hope and fear, and pride and 
 
 shame. 
 
 [^9]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 And life and death; dim-journeying passionless 
 To where broad estuary and beaconing ness 
 Look toward the outlands whence our fathers came. 
 And high on Druid mountains hath the sun 
 Flamed valediction, as the last lights died 
 Beyond that fatal wave, that from our side 
 Sunders the lovely and the lonely Bride 
 That we have wedded but have never won. 
 
 [31]
 
 IV
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 And night falls on an isle whose vassal seas 
 Remember not her prone regalities, 
 So withered from belief, so far and faint, 
 In such abjection before Time they lie, 
 Kingdoms and thrones forgotten of the sky, 
 Deira with her sea-face to the morn, 
 And Cumbria sunset-gazing; moist Divnaint, 
 A realm of coombs and tors; old greatnesses 
 
 [35]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 From Dee to Severn, where the bards were born 
 Whose songs are in the wind by Idris' chair, 
 Whose lips won battles ; and seats of puissance 
 
 where. 
 With long grope of his desultory hand, 
 The ocean, prying deep into the land. 
 By Morvern and the legends of wild Lorn, 
 
 [37]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Repents him, lost about Locheil: all these 
 Have been, and stablisht on their dust we stand; 
 Thy England ; with the northern sister fair, 
 That hath the heath-bells in her blowing hair; 
 And the dark mountain maid 
 That dreams for ever in the wizard shade. 
 Hymning her heroes there. 
 
 [39]
 
 V
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 O doom of overlordships ! to decay 
 
 First at the heart, the eye scarce dimmed at all; 
 
 Or perish of much cumber and array, 
 
 The burdening robe of empire, and its pall ; 
 
 Or, of voluptuous hours the wanton prey. 
 
 Die of the poisons that most sweetly slay ; 
 
 Or, from insensate height. 
 
 With prodigies, with light 
 
 [43]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Of trailing angers on the monstrous night, 
 
 Magnificently fall. 
 
 Far off from her that bore us be such fate, 
 
 And vain against her gate 
 
 Its knocking. But by chinks and crannies. 
 
 Death, 
 Forbid the doorways, oft-times entereth. 
 Let her drink deep of discontent, and sow 
 
 [45]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Abroad the troubling knowledge. Let her show 
 Whence glories come, and wherefore glories go. 
 And what indeed are glories, unto these 
 'Twixt labour and the rest that is not ease 
 Made blank and darksome; who have hardly 
 
 heard 
 Sound of her loftiest names, or any word 
 Of all that hath in gold been said and sung. 
 
 [47]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Since him of April heart and morning tongue. 
 
 Her ageless singing-bird. 
 
 For now the day is unto them that know, 
 
 And not henceforth she stumbles on the prize; 
 
 And yonder march the nations full of eyes. 
 
 Already is doom a-spinning, if unstirred 
 
 In leisure of ancient pathways she lose touch 
 
 Of the hour, and overmuch 
 
 [49]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Recline upon achievement, and be slow 
 To take the world arriving, and forget 
 How perilous are the stature and port that so 
 Invite the arrows, how unslumbering all 
 The hates that watch and crawl. 
 Nor must she, like the others, yield up yet 
 The generous dreams ! but rather live to be 
 Saluted in the hearts of men as she 
 
 [51]
 
 ODE ON THE DAY OF THE CORONATION 
 
 Of high and singular election, set 
 Benignant on the mitigated sea; 
 That greatly loving freedom loved to free, 
 And was herself the bridal and embrace 
 Of strength and conquering grace. 
 
 [53]
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF 
 WILLIAM WATSON, PUBLISHED 
 BY JOHN LANE, AT THE BODLEY 
 HEAD, 67 VTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
 
 The Collected Poems or William Watson, with photogravure por- 
 trait of the author as frontispiece. Designed cover. i2ino. $1.50. 
 This volume includes the work contained in the author's volumes, 
 " Poems,'' '* Lachrymae Musarum," " Odes, and Other Poems," 
 "The Father of the Forest, and Other Poems," "The Year of 
 Shame,'' and " The Hope of the World, and Other Poems," with 
 the exception of a few poems excluded by the author. 
 
 Tkt London Daily Chronicle says : "As we look through this collected edition 
 of his work we feel confirmed in our belief that whatever his limitations, and 
 they are not few, it is Mr Watson's function and his glory to hand on, in this 
 generation, the great classical tradition of English poetry. On the threshold 
 of the twentieth century he reconciles and brings to a common denominator, as 
 it were, the best qualities of eighteenth-century and of nineteenth-century verse. 
 He is the heir no less of Dryden than of Tennyson ; it is hard to say whether 
 Keats or Pope has more potentially influenced him. There is significance in 
 the fact that his favorite instrument, which he fingers with the utmost mastery, 
 is the classic instrument of the English Muse — the iambic pentameter. Preg- 
 nant, resonant, memorable lines flow inexhaustibly from his pen ; and some of 
 them, we venture to predict, will live with the lang^ge." 
 
 The follotuing separate Volumes by Mr. ffilliam Watson 
 may still be had: 
 
 The Prince's Qjiest, and Other Poems. $1.50. [Third edition 
 
 Poems. $\.^S• [Fifth edition 
 
 Lachrymae Musarum. $1.25. [Fourth edition 
 
 The Eloping Angels. $1.25. [Second edition 
 
 Odes, and Other Poems. jjSi.jo. [Fifth edition 
 
 The Father of the Forest, and Other Poems. #1.25. [^fth edition 
 
 The Purple East. )i5o.50. [Third edition 
 
 The Year of Shame, jfi.oo. [Second edition 
 
 The Hope of the World, and Other Poems. ^1.25. [Third edition 
 
 Excursions in Criticism. Jlti.50. [Second edition
 
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