(On reading Professor H. Butterfield's "The Englishman and his History") Two Histories there are in England's isle: One is of hard sought scientific fact God by research laborious and exact And needing patient teamwork to compile— A monument that none may dare hold vile, For thus, it teaches, Truth herself must act, Whose is the deft and salutary tact To explode the false, lay bare the forger's guile. The other pores not over books and deeds, But lives enshrined in hearts of transient men, Continuously as age to age succeeds, And little recks it the revising pen: It is that Whiggery the nation reads In its own eyes and every citizen. And seasons have been when It has supremely grasped the helm of state, Making tumultuous passions moderate And yield to cool debate; Disarming mobs, gently unthroning Kings, Forbidding civil war to imp its wings. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A NEW HYMN by KATHERINE MANSFIELD TO A CYCLAMEN by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR LEGEND by JOHN VAN ALSTYN WEAVER FRAGMENTS INTENDED FOR DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: SACRIFICE SELF-COMPENSATED by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |