'O ENGLAND, may God punish thee!' - Is it that Teuton genius flowers Only to breathe malignity Upon its friend of earlier hours? - We have eaten your bread, you have eaten ours, We have loved your burgs, your pines' green moan, Fair Rhine-stream, and its storied towers; Your shining souls of deathless dowers Have won us as they were our own: We have nursed no dreams to shed your blood, We have matched your might not rancorously Save a flushed few whose blatant mood You heard and marked as well as we To tongue not in their country's key; But yet you cry with face aflame, 'O England, may God punish thee!' And foul in onward history, And present sight, your ancient name. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INFANT JOY, FR. SONGS OF INNOCENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE KU KLUX by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN THE BARD; A PINDARIC ODE by THOMAS GRAY IN THE LAND WHERE WE WERE DREAMING by DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS VERSES ADDRESSED TO IMITATOR OF FIRST SATIRE OF HORACE by MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU INTERVAL by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE CHANCE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN ON THE TRUE MEANING OF THE SCRIPTURE TERMS 'LIFE AND DEATH,' by JOHN BYROM |