DAY breaks on England down the Kentish hills, <br />Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills, <br />Day of my dreams, O day! <br />I saw them march from Dover, long ago, <br />With a silver cross before them, singing low, <br />Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam, <br />Augustine with his feet of snow. <br /> <br />Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town, <br />--Beauty she was statue cold--there's blood upon her gown: <br />Noon of my dreams, O noon! <br />Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago, <br />With her towers and tombs and statues all arow, <br />With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there, <br />And the streets where the great men go. <br /> <br />Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales, <br />When the first star shivers and the last wave pales: <br />O evening dreams! <br />There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago, <br />Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow, <br />And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead <br />Sway when the long winds blow. <br /> <br />Sleep not, my country: though night is here, afar <br />Your children of the morning are clamorous for war: <br />Fire in the night, O dreams! <br />Though she send you as she sent you, long ago, <br />South to the desert, east to ocean, north to snow, <br />West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must go <br />Where the fleet of stars is anchored, and the young star-captains glow.<br /><br />James Elroy Flecker<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dying-patriot/
