GIBRALTAR. Photogravure from a photograph. Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas Between the East and West, that God has built; While run thy armies true with his decrees:" Law, justice, liberty,- great gifts are these; Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt, Lest, mixed and sullied with his country's guilt, The soldier's life-stream flow, and Heaven displease! Two swords there are: one naked, apt to smite,- Now westward, look, my country bids good-night- FROM MY COUNTRY' DESTINED Land, unto thy citadel, What founding fates even now doth peace compel, O throned Freedom, unto thee is brought Empire, nor falsehood nor blood-payment asked; Who never through deceit thy ends hast sought, Nor toiling millions for ambition tasked; Unlike the fools who build the throne On fraud, and wrong, and woe; For man at last will take his own, But far from these is set thy continent, Nor fears the Revolution in man's rise; On laws that with the weal of all consent, And saving truths that make the people wise. For thou art founded in the eternal fact That every man doth greaten with the act Of freedom; and doth strengthen with the weight By sharp experience taught the thing he lacked, Of Bounty: thou hast given all; thy store He may not plead desert, but holds of thee A childhood title, shared with all who grew — His brethren of the hearth: whence no man lifts Above the common right his claim; nor dares To fence his pastures of the common good: For common are thy fields; common the toil, Common the charter of prosperity, That gives to each that all may blessèd be. The alms he took: let him not think subdued From each his duties, howsoever great; To the true course more nigh; in every age Of common thought; Beyond the stars, from the Far City brought. Declare the shaping power, Of the stern, righteous time, From sire to son bequeathed, thy eldest dower. Cast in the iron mold that fate reveres; |