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Home  »  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895  »  England and Her Colonies

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Sir William Watson 1858–1935

England and Her Colonies

Watson-W

SHE stands, a thousand-wintered tree,

By countless morns impearled;

Her broad roots coil beneath the sea,

Her branches sweep the world;

Her seeds, by careless winds conveyed,

Clothe the remotest strand

With forests from her scatterings made,

New nations fostered in her shade,

And linking land with land.

O ye by wandering tempest sown

’Neath every alien star,

Forget not whence the breath was blown

That wafted you afar!

For ye are still her ancient seed

On younger soil let fall—

Children of Britain’s island-breed,

To whom the Mother in her need

Perchance may one day call.

WILLIAM WATSON.

POEMS: 1893.