POEMS OF THE ENGLISH RACE

THE ENGLISH RACE

SELECTED AND EDITED

BY

RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1921
R.BP.

SYDNEY DOBELL.

O ye who in eternal youth

Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand

Its breathing book, live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance-parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered,-children brave and free
Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.