Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE ON INSTALLATION OF PRINCE OF WALES AS CHANCELLOR OF UNIV. OF WALES, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE ON INSTALLATION OF PRINCE OF WALES AS CHANCELLOR OF UNIV. OF WALES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This is our joyous hour
Last Line: Sits wisdom crowned with right!
Subject(s): Edward Vii, King Of England (1841-1910); University Of Wales


THIS is our joyous hour,
The Dawn expected long;
Break, "Sea of music," in a surge of song!
The long, long night of ignorance is done,
Triumphant o'er our land the Orient sun
Shines with renascent power;
Our little Wales that lay asleep
In secular slumbers deep
Awakes for whatsoe'er of nobler fate,
What ampler, happier fortunes fair,
The hidden years prepare.

Here on the sounding margin of the sea,
Whence the shy Mountain-Spirit dwells not far,
We who of hills and sea the children are
Unite to-day in joyous pageantry,
To-day rejoice! On this auspicious morn,
From Strife to Peace re-born
Our lost Llywelyn seems again to come,
For love of learning to his ancient home;
While with her fair-grown daughters twain
Our gracious Royal Lady smiles again!
Rejoice! it is a joyous day;
The dawn of Knowledge drives the night away;
Young Summer comes, the skies and seas are blue;
Lo, a new spirit breathing, maketh all things new!

Brief are our lives upon the labouring earth,
Our tasks of little worth;
Ere half is done, a cold voice calls, and then,
Beyond the ways of men,
We know no more the joy of emulous strife,
The toils, the victories of life.
A little while we are, and then ere long
Still is the busy brain, and hushed the voice of song.
Men sow, but others reap,
While in oblivion deep,
Far off, we know not where, the toilers lie asleep.
Already round our new-built Temple fair,
The fragrant memories of the faithful Dead
Bloom frequent everywhere.
Already ere its walls completed stand,
Or its consummate spires assail the skies,
There waits without the gate a noble band
Of patient ghosts who gaze with yearning eyes.
Not upon earth 'twas theirs to see
The bright ideal of their life-long dream,
Our native Academe;
Bat we who on their labours enter, we,
Shall we forget to give the honour due
To those whose provident thought our country's need foreknew,
Those unrewarded spirits now at rest
Who laboured for the Best?

Blest patriots of our long-drawn centuries,
And ye but lately vanished from our eyes,
Rejoice! If echo of our fortunes here
Can reach and wake the spiritual ear,
Henceforth our well-loved Cymric land
Shall 'mid her sisters stand,
Dowered not alone with what of precious lore
The dead Past holds in store,
But the fair harvests of the days to be,
The hidden treasures, more than gems or gold,
More precious far than old Philosophy,
Which Science boasts to hold.
The New Age calls, and we upon the verge
Hear the weird thunders of the magic surge;
New thoughts, new gains, the imminent future brings;
Fairer than ever in his cloistered cell
The visionary searcher wondering saw: --
Forces unknown subdued; rich fields of Ordered Law,
Where sown with Ruin trackless deserts awe;
Enchanted forests, caverns, pitiless seas,
And further, dimmer, darker still than these,
The Secret through the ages guarded well,
Of Life, of Death, Good, Evil, Heaven and Hell.

Rise Thou, dear land, on Learning's even wings,
Rise in Heaven's face, and, soaring, leave behind
Thy sordid outworn robe of lower Things;
The eye by grosser mists grown blind;
The earthy soul; the unawakened mind;
All jealous hates, all faithless fears,
And low delights more pitiful than tears.
Awake! advance! arise! ascend at length
Thro' wider knowledge to a fuller strength,
To loftier heights, and nobler ends complete.
Purge throughly from thy late-enfranchised sight
The clouds, the glooms of Time's departed Night,
Soar, higher, higher, with the increasing light
Where throned, with clouds beneath her shining feet,
Sits Wisdom crowned with Right!





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