<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Retrogression</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Our daughters flower in vernal grace;</p><p class="line">In strength our striplings wax apace;</p><p class="line">Our cities teem ; our commerce rides</p><p class="line">Sovereign upon the fawning tides.</p><p class="line">But while, to this our stronghold—where</p><p class="line">The North Wind's wandering children fair,</p><p class="line">Like wild birds from the waters sprung,</p><p class="line">Built their wild nest and reared their young—</p><p class="line">The fleets of peace for ever pour</p><p class="line">Fruitage and vintage, gems and ore;</p><p class="line">While here, within each ocean gate.</p><p class="line">Long barricadoed against Fate,</p><p class="line">We are served by all the alien seas.</p><p class="line">And fed from the Antipodes,</p><p class="line">Lo, everywhere the unplenished brain!</p><p class="line">Everywhere, dire as bondman's chain,</p><p class="line">Or laws that crush, or creeds that blind,</p><p class="line">The leanness of the unnourished mind.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">For few and fewer do they grow.</p><p class="line">Who know, or ever cared to know,</p><p class="line">The great things greatly said and sung</p><p class="line">In this heroic English tongue.</p><p class="line">This craggy speech, the rough-wrought key</p><p class="line">To palaces of wizardry.</p><p class="line">Our fathers' glory, and our despair;</p><p class="line">And many a fabric hung in air.</p><p class="line">That firmer stands than boastful stone;</p><p class="line">And many a tower of vigil lone.</p><p class="line">Whence Wisdom sees, beneath her curled,</p><p class="line">The involved, inextricable world.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And shouldst thou have in thee to-day</p><p class="line">Aught thou canst better sing than say.</p><p class="line">Shun, if thou wouldst by men be heard.</p><p class="line">The comely phrase, the wellborn word.</p><p class="line">And use, as for their ears more meet,</p><p class="line">The loose-lipped lingo of the street,</p><p class="line">A language Milton's kin have long</p><p class="line">Accounted good enough for song.</p><p class="line">Or don that vesture not less vile.</p><p class="line">The beaded and bespangled style—</p><p class="line">Diction o'erloaded and impure.</p><p class="line">Thy thought lost in its garniture.</p><p class="line">Till this itself becomes the goal.</p><p class="line">The alpha, omega, and whole;</p><p class="line">Thy Muse, ev'n to her raiment's hem,</p><p class="line">Huddling uncostly gem on gem.</p><p class="line">Striving her lax form to bestar</p><p class="line">With all crude ornaments that are;</p><p class="line">An empty and a dreary strife,</p><p class="line">Vulgar in Letters as in Life.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Nor look for praise, save here and there</p><p class="line">From a fast-dwindling remnant rare.</p><p class="line">If thou beget with happy pain</p><p class="line">The ordered and the governed strain</p><p class="line">That peradventure had not shamed</p><p class="line">Masters felicitously famed,</p><p class="line">Dryden, the athlete large and strong,</p><p class="line">Lord of the nerve and sinew of song;</p><p class="line">The easeful victor, who subdued</p><p class="line">Till conquest was but habitude;</p><p class="line">A hewer and shaper who could see</p><p class="line">In adamant plasticity,</p><p class="line">Who tore from the entrails of the mine</p><p class="line">The metal of his iron line—</p><p class="line">Iron that oft all molten rolled.</p><p class="line">Heaved to a billow, and crashed to gold,</p><p class="line">Who, born beside the haughty tomb</p><p class="line">Of that rank time of overbloom</p><p class="line">When poets vied in gathering each</p><p class="line">Full-bosomed apple and buxom peach</p><p class="line">That odorous in the orchard burned,</p><p class="line">Had, from their purple surfeit, leamed</p><p class="line">The truth in Hellas seen so plain.</p><p class="line">That the art of arts is to refrain;—</p><p class="line">Or Gray, who on worn thoughts conferred</p><p class="line">That second youth, the perfect word,</p><p class="line">The elected and predestined phrase</p><p class="line">That had lain bound, long nights and days,</p><p class="line">To wear at last, when once set free,</p><p class="line">Immortal pellucidity;</p><p class="line">And who, in that most mighty Ode,</p><p class="line">That like a pageant streamed and glowed,</p><p class="line">Called up anew mid breathing things</p><p class="line">The great ghosts of our tragic Kings,</p><p class="line">With doom-dark brows to come and go,</p><p class="line">Trailing the folds of gorgeous woe.</p></div></body></html> · Great War