Classic Poem

What cordial part in you is ours,
Who in the ancient isle had birth:
You, of strange stars and other flowers,
Ends of the endless earth?

You fire us to imperial thought:
Proud passion kindles at your names,
O other Englands, vastly wrought,
Fashioned from out great flames!

But some across the worlds of waves
Gaze with more intimate intent:
To lifelong homes and deathlong graves
Half of our hearts we lent:

Half of our hearts! Oh, worlds away
Beat they or sleep, where many a friend
Through luminous night and burning day
Waits, or has found, his end.

Our waves of fame no more they see,
Our memoried winds they may not hear:
Their worlds to us will ever be
Alien: yet near and dear!

Through Oxford summers, London days,
Who walked with us, now set their feet,
Ends of the earth! on your far ways,
That ours will never meet.

We bide within the English seas
Among the fields of home: but yet,
Far realms and marvellous distances!
On you our eyes are set.

You prison us in loving chains,
You bind us fast with treasured bands:
Our hearts are on your vasty plains,
Afric and Austral lands!