O, heightsome hills that fill my sight,
The elder of all mortal might —
Ere druid walked in gloomy night
Or ever wingèd bird took flight;
Before was hewn the henge that stands
To frame the sun in Angle-land,
Still steadfast stood and upward shot,
Like Icarus on wings too hot,
Toward the æther, day and night,
While judging neither wrong nor right,
The mountains in the northern climes
(Near lakes of blue and stone of lime),
They never speak but ever call,
The hearts of men they hold in thrall,
And echo loud the manly deeds
Oft done beneath by Adam’s seed
In Albion, fairest land of all —
The home of braver men than Gaul!
Her high white cliffs hold in disdain
The foreign yoke and foreign thane,
And all who would set foot above
Her tallest coastal walls must prove
Their battle-might and skill in war
Before they break Britannia’s door!
And so the men who first within
The fortress island lived as kin
Were hearty folk who dared to kill
The giant race who lived there still;
And so beneath the mountains’ sight
The Trojan men first won the fight:
See how the giant race does fall
And Brutus reigns in New Troy hall!
And down the years when Caesar came
To land in Britain with the aim
Of taking for the Roman whore
All Albion’s gold by blood and gore,
Yet still the mountains watched above
Till Saxons took the English coves
And tamed Britannia’s heath and moor,
Until the Norsemen robbed them poor.
“Weep not,” the mountains seem to say,
For they can see, from far away,
Comes Ælfred with his mighty band
To free from heathen Dane the land!
The Saxon rule rolls through the years
Till Northman to those shores draws near:
The Bastard from the foreign field
Comes now to Saxon lands to steal
The crown, unlawful, from the heir
Of Edward, upon Norman mares
To take the birthright from the men
From Saxony in England’s fens.
But though the battle ends in loss,
The Saxon vengeance now does cross
The Channel as King Henry Five
Takes charge of Norman lands and lives
And France feels full the might of sires
That wield the iron forged in fires
In England’s Kingdom to the North
For lo! she sends her best men forth
To take back all her rightful lot
And shout as one: “Dieu et mon droit!”
And through the ages English might
Improved by day, improved by night,
Until at last in Europe whole
Is British might in arm and soul
Now shown to be the best between
The earth and sky where Mary’s Queen —
They take and tame for English kings
The best and worst that Nature brings.
Although the mountains shadows cast
On Albion’s North where Rome came last,
The flag is set and waves on high
Nor hides from sun nor sees the night,
For sunlight nevermore does set
Where Englishmen have set foot yet.
But now, at last, in England’s need,
We’ve new unhappy lords of greed:
Art hides its face; sings not the pen;
Our holy fonts all stagnant fens —
There shall return, ‘neath mountains’ sight,
The Faith of Ælfred, Guthrum’s Light,
To take again Its old fair seat
On British land these foes to meet!
“Weep not,” the mountains seem to say,
For they have seen the end of days;
From their high view they know the plan
And know the Faith the English man
Must now take up lest all should end
His fathers great died to defend!
A Counterblaste 