Fool that I was: my heart was sore, Yea sick for the myriad wounded men, The maim'd in the war: I had grief for each one: And I came in the gay September sun To the open smile of Trafalgar Square; Where many a lad with a limb fordone Loll'd by the lion-guarded column That holdeth Nelson statued thereon Upright in the air. The Parliament towers and the Abbey towers, The white Horseguards and grey Whitehall, He looketh on all, Past Somerset House and the river's bend To the pillar'd dome of St. Paul That slumbers confessing God's solemn blessing On England's glory, to keep it ours -- While children true her prowess renew And throng from the ends of the earth to defend Freedom and honour -- till Earth shall end. The gentle unjealous Shakespeare, I trow, In his country tomb of peaceful fame, Must feel exiled from life and glow If he think of this man with his warrior claim, Who looketh o'er London as if 'twere his own, As he standeth in stone, aloft and alone, Sailing the sky with one arm and one eye. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...REMEMBRANCE by EMILY JANE BRONTE NOTHING TO WEAR' by WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER THE EXILE by LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA A SUMMER NIGHT by MATTHEW ARNOLD THE WANDERER by MATHILDE BLIND TO SYLO by GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS A TALE, FOUNDED ON A FACT WHICH HAPPENED IN JANUARY 1779 by WILLIAM COWPER |