Roderic Quinn

The House of the Commonwealth

We sent a word across the seas that said,
 "The house is finished and the doors are wide,
  Come, enter in.
A stately house it is, with tables spread,
 Where men in liberty and love abide
  With hearts akin.

"Behold, how high our hands have lifted it!
 The soil it stands upon is pure and sweet
  As are our skies.
Our title deeds in holy sweat are writ,
 Not red accusing blood — and 'neath our feet
  No foeman lies."

And England, Mother England, leans her face
 Upon her hand and feels her blood burn young
  At what she sees:
The image here of that fair strength and grace
 That made her feared and loved and sought and sung
  Through centuries.

What chorus shall we lift, what song of joy,
What boom of seaward cannon, roll of drums?
The majesty of nationhood demands
A burst of royal sounds, as when a victor comes
From peril of a thousand foes;
An empire's honour saved from death
Brought home again; an added rose
Of victory upon its wreath.
In this wise men have greeted kings,
In name or fame,
But such acclaim
Were vain and emptiest of things
If love were silent, drawn apart,
And mute the People's mighty heart.

The love that ivy-like an ancient land doth cherish,
It grows not in a day, nor in a year doth perish.
 But, little leaf by leaf,
It creeps along the walls and wreathes the ramparts hoary.
The sun that gives it strength — it is a nation's glory;
 The dew, a people's grief.

The love that ivy-like around a home-land lingers,
With soft embrace of breast and green, caressive fingers,
 We are too young to know.
Not ours the glory-dome, the monuments and arches
At thought of which takes arms the blood, and proudly marches
 Exultant o'er the foe.

Green lands undesolated
For no avengement cry;
No feud of race unsated
Leaps out again to triumph,
Leaps out again to triumph, or to die!

Attendant here to-day in heart and mind
Must be all lovers of mankind,
Attendant, too, the souls sublime —
The Prophet-souls of every clime,
Who, living, in a tyrant's time,
Yet thought and wrought and sought to break
The chains about mankind and make
A man where men had made a slave:
Who all intent to lift and save
Beheld the flag of Freedom wave
And scorned the prison or the grave;
For whom the darkness failed to mar
The vision of a world afar,
The shining of the Morning Star.
Attendant here, then, they must be,
And gathering close with eyes elate
Behold the vision of a State
Where men are equal, just, and free:
A State that hath no stain upon her,
No taint to hurt her maiden honour;
A Home where love and kindness centre;
A People's House where all may enter.
And, being entered, meet no dearth
Of welcome round a common hearth;
A People's House not built of stone,
Nor wrought by hand and brain alone,
But formed and founded on the heart;
A People's House, A People's Home,
En-isled in foam and far apart;
A People's House, where all may roam
The many rooms and be at ease;
A People's House, with tower and dome;
And over all a People's Flag —
A Flag upon the breeze.

The Lotus-Flower

All the heights of the high shores gleam
 Red and gold at the sunset hour:
There comes the spell of a magic dream,
 And the Harbour seems a lotus-flower;

A blue flower tinted at dawn with gold,
 A broad flower blazing with light at noon,
A flower forever with charms to hold
 His heart, who sees it by sun or moon.

Its beauty burns like a ceaseless fire,
 And tower looks over the top of tower;
For all mute things it would seem, aspire
 To catch a glimpse of the lotus-flower.

Men meet its beauty with furrowed face,
 And straight the furrows are smoothed away;
They buy and sell in the market-place,
 And languor leadens their blood all day.

At night they look on the flower, and lo!
 The City passes with all its cares:
They dream no more in its azure glow,
 Of gold and silver and stocks and shares.

The Lotus dreams 'neath the dreaming skies,
 Its beauty touching with spell divine
The grey old town, till the old town lies
 Like one half-drunk with a magic wine.

Star-loved, it breathes at the midnight hour
 A sense of peace from its velvet mouth.
Though flowers be fair — is there any flower
 Like this blue flower of the radiant South?

Sun-loved and lit by the moon it yields
 A challenge-glory or glow serene,
And men bethink them of jewelled shields,
 A turquoise lighting a ground of green.

Fond lovers pacing beside it see
 Not death and darkness, but life and light,
And dream no dream of the witchery
 The Lotus sheds on the silent night.

Pale watchers weary of watching stars
 That fall, and fall, and forever fall,
Tear-worn and troubled with many scars,
 They seek the Lotus and end life's thrall.

The spirit spelled by the Lotus swoons,
 Its beauty summons the artist mood;
And thus, perchance, in a thousand moons
 Its spell shall work in our waiting blood.

Then souls shall shine with an old-time grace,
 And sense be wrapped in a golden trance,
And art be crowned in the market-place
 With Love and Beauty and fair Romance.