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Robert Laurence Binyon - Milton
Work rating: Low

An Ode
 Soul of England, dost thou sleep,
 Lulled or dulled, thy mighty youth forgotten?
 Of the world`s wine hast thou drunk too deep?
 Hast thou sown more than thy hands can reap?
 Turn again thine ear
 To that song severe
 In thine hour of storm and war begotten!

 Here in towered London`s throng,
 In her streets, with Time`s new murmur seething,
 Milton pacing mused his haughty song;
 Here he sleeps out feud, fret, and wrong.
 Nay, that spirit august
 Tramples death`s low dust,
 Still for us is kindled, burning, breathing.

 He, on whose earth--darkened sight
 Rose horizons of the empyrean
 And the ordered spheres` unhasting flight;
 He who saw, where round the heart of Light
 Seraphs ardent--eyed
 Flamed in circle wide,
 Quiring music of their solemn paean,

 When through space a trouble ran
 (Like a flush on serene skies arisen)
 That from this dim spot of earth began--
 Rumour of the world`s new marvel, Man,
 From whose heart--beat sped
 Hope, hazard, and dread
 Past earth`s borders to hell`s fiery prison:

 He who saw the Anarch`s hate
 Tower, winged for woe; the serpent charming
 Eve in her imperilled bower; the Gate
 Barred, and those two forms that desolate
 Mid the radiant spheres
 Wept first human tears;
 Earlier war in heaven and angels arming:

 He who, like his Samson, bowed,
 Toiling, hardly--tasked and night--enfolded,
 Steered his proud course to one purpose vowed,
 As an eagle beats through hailing cloud
 Strong--winged and alone,
 Seeking skies unknown:
 He whose verse, majestically moulded,

 Moves like armed and bannered host
 Streaming irresistible, or abounding
 River in a land`s remoteness lost,
 Poured from solitary peaks of frost,
 And far histories brings
 Of old realms and kings,
 With high fates of fallen Man resounding:

 This is England`s voice that rang
 Over Europe; this the soul unshaken
 That from darkness a great splendour sang,
 Beauty mightier for the cost and pang;
 Of our blood and name
 Risen, our spirits to claim,
 To enlarge, to summon, to awaken.
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