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Robert Laurence Binyon - Thunder On The Downs
Work rating: Low

Wide earth, wide heaven, and in the summer air
 Silence! The summit of the Down is bare
 Between the climbing crests of wood; but those
 Great sea--winds, wont, when the wet South--West blows,
 To rock tall beeches and strong oaks aloud
 And strew torn leaves upon the streaming cloud,
 To--day are idle, slumbering far aloof.
 Under the solemn height and gorgeous roof
 Of cloud--built sky, all earth is indolent.
 Wandering hum of bees and thymy scent
 Of the short turf enrich pure loneliness;
 Scarcely an airy topmost--twining tress
 Of bryony quivers where the thorn it wreathes;
 Hot fragrance from the honeysuckle breathes,
 And sweet the rose floats on the arching briar`s
 Green fountain, sprayed with delicate frail fires.
 For clumps of thicket, dark beneath the blaze
 Of the high westering sun, beset the ways
 Of smooth grass narrowing where the slope runs steep
 Down to green woods, and glowing shadows keep
 A freshness round the mossy roots, and cool
 The light that sleeps as in a chequered pool
 Of golden air. O woods, I love you well,
 I love the flowers you hide, your ferny smell;
 But here is sweeter solitude, for here
 My heart breathes heavenly space; the sky is near
 To thought, with heights that fathomlessly glow;
 And the eye wanders the wide land below.

 And this is England! June`s undarkened green
 Gleams on far woods; and in the vales between
 Gray hamlets, older than the trees that shade
 Their ripening meadows, are in quiet laid,
 Themselves a part of the warm, fruitful ground.
 The little hills of England rise around;
 The little streams that wander from them shine
 And with their names remembered names entwine
 Of old renown and honour, fields of blood
 High causes fought on, stubborn hardihood
 For freedom spent, and songs, our noblest pride,
 That in the heart of England never died,
 And burning still make splendour of our tongue.
 Glories enacted, spoken, suffered, sung,
 You lie emblazoned on this land now sleeping;
 And southward, over leagues of forest sweeping
 White on the verge glistens the famous sea,
 That English wave, on which so haughtily
 Towered her sails, and one sail homeward bore
 Past capes of silently lamenting shore
 Victory`s dearest dead. O shores of home,
 Since by the vanished watch--fire shields of Rome
 Dinted this upland turf, what hearts have ached
 To see you far away, what eyes have waked
 Ere dawn to watch those cliffs of long desire
 One after one rise in their voiceless choir
 Out of the twilight over the rough blue
     Like music!... But now heavy gleams imbrue
 The inland air. Breathless the valleys hold
 Their colours in a veil of sultry gold
 With mingled shadows that have ceased to crawl;
 For far in heaven is thunder! Over all
 A single cloud in slow magnificence
 Climbs like a mountain, gradual and immense,
 With awful head unstirring, and moved on
 Against the zenith, towers above the sun.
 And still it thickens luminous fold on fold
 Of fatal colour, ominously scrolled
 And fleeced with fire; above the sun it towers
 Like some vast thought quickening a world not ours
 Remote in the waste blue, as if behind
 Its rim were splendour that could smite us blind,
 So doom--piled and intense it crests heaven`s height
 And mounting makes a menace of the light.
 A menace! Yes, for when light comes, we fear.
 Light that may touch, as the pure angel--spear,
 Us to ourselves, make visible, make start
 The apparition of the very heart
 And mystery of our thoughts, awaked from under
 The mask of cheating habit, and to thunder
 Bare in a moment of white fire what we
 Have feared and fled, our own reality.

 And if a lightning now were loosed in flame
 Out of the darkness of the cloud to claim
 Thy heart, O England, how wouldst thou be known
 In that hour? How to the quick core be shown
 And seen? What cry should from thy very soul
 Answer the judgment of that thunder--roll?

 I hear a voice arraign thee. ``Where is now
 The exaltation that once lit thy brow?
 Thou countest all thy ocean--sundered lands,
 Thou heapest up the labours of thy hands,
 Thou seest all thy ships upon the seas.
 But in thine own heart mean idolatries
 Usurp devotion, choke thee and annul
 Noble excess of spirit, and make dull
 Thine eyes, enfleshed with much dominion.
 Art thou so great and is the glory gone?
 Do these bespeak thy freedom who deflower
 Time, and make barren every senseless hour,
 Who from themselves hurry, like men afraid
 Lest what they are be to themselves betrayed?
 Or those who in their huddled thousands sweat
 To buy the sleep that helps them to forget?--
 Life lies unused, life with its loveliness!
 While the cry ravens still, ``Possess, Possess!``
 And there is no possession. All the lust
 Of gainful man is quieted in dust;
 His faith, his fear, his joy, his doom he owns,
 No more: the rest is parcelled with his bones,
 Save what the imagination of his heart
 Can to the labour of his hands impart,
 Making stones serve his spirit`s desire, and breathe.
 But thou, what dost thou to the world bequeathe,
 Who gatherest riches in a waste of mind
 Unto what end, O confidently blind,
 Forgetful of the things that grow not old
 And alone live and are not bought or sold?``

 Speaks that voice truth? Is it for this that great
 And tender spirits suffered scorn and hate,
 Loved to the utmost, poured themselves, gave all
 Nor counted cost, spirits imperial?
 Where are they now, they that our memory guard
 Among the nations? Shall I say enstarred
 And throned aloof? No, not from heavens of thought
 Watching our muddied brief procession, not
 Judges sublime above us, without share
 In our thronged ways of struggle, hope, despair,
 But in our blood, our dreams, our deeds they stir,
 Strive on our lips for language, shame and spur
 The sluggard in us, out of darkness come
 Like summoned champions when the world is dumb;
 Within our hearts they wait with all they gave:
 Woe to us, woe, if we become their grave!
 It shall not be. Darken thy pall, and trail,
 Thunder of heaven, above the valleys pale!
 Another England in my vision glows.
 And she is armed within; at last she knows
 Herself, and what to her own soul belongs.
 Mid the world`s irremediable wrongs
 She keeps her faith; and nothing of her name
 Or of her handiwork but doth proclaim
 Her purpose. Her own soul hath made her free,
 Not circumstance; she knows no victory
 Save of the mind: in her is nothing done,
 No wrong, no shame, no glory of any one,
 But is the cause of all and each, a thing
 Felt like a fire to kindle and to sting
 The proud blood of a nation. On her brows
 Is hope; her body doth her spirit house
 Express and eloquent, not dumb and frore;
 And her voice echoes over sea and shore,
 And all the lands and isles that are her own
 In choric interchange and antiphon
 Answer, as fancy hears in yonder cloud
 From vale to vale repeated low and loud
       The still--suspended thunder. Hearts of Youth,
 High--beating, ardent, quick in hope and ruth
 And noble anger, O wherever now
 You dedicate your uncorrupted vow
 To be an energy of Light, a sword
 Of the ever--living Will, amid abhorred
 Din of the reeking street and populous den
 Where under the great stars blind lusts of men
 War on each other, or escaped to hills
 Where peace the solitary evening fills,
 Or far remote on other soils of earth
 Keeping the dearness of your fathers` hearth
 On vast plains of the West, or Austral strands
 Of the warm under--world, or storied lands
 Of the orient sun, or over ocean ways
 Stemming the wave through blue or stormy days,
 Wherever, as the circling light slopes round,
 On human lips is heard an English sound,
 O scattered, silent, hidden, and unknown,
 Be lifted up, for you are not alone!
 High--beating hearts, to your deep vows be true!
 Live out your dreams, for England lives in you.
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