The White Cliffs

I

I have loved England, dearly and deeply,

Since that first morning, shining and pure,

The white cliffs of Dover I saw rising steeply

Out of the sea that once made her secure.

I had no thought then of husband or lover,

I was a traveller, the guest of a week;

Yet when they pointed ‘the white cliffs of Dover’,

Startled I found there were tears on my cheek.

I have loved England, and still as a stranger,

Here is my home and I still am alone.

Now in her hour of trial and danger,

Only the English are really her own.

II

It happened the first evening I was there.

Some one was giving a ball in Belgrave Square.

At Belgrave Square, that most Victorian spot.—

Lives there a novel-reader who has not

At some time wept for those delightful girls,

Daughters of dukes, prime ministers and earls,

In bonnets, berthas, bustles, buttoned basques,

Hiding behind their pure Victorian masks

Hearts just as hot – hotter perhaps than those

Whose owners now abandon hats and hose?

Who has not wept for Lady Joan or Jill

Loving against her noble parent’s will

A handsome guardsman, who to her alarm

Feels her hand kissed behind a potted palm

At Lady Ivry’s ball the dreadful night

Before his regiment goes off to fight;

And see him the next morning, in the park,

Complete in busbee, marching to embark.

I had read freely, even as a child,

Not only Meredith and Oscar Wilde

But many novels of an earlier day—

Ravenshoe, Can You Forgive Her?, Vivien Grey,

Ouida, The Duchess, Broughton’s Red As a Rose,

Guy Livingstone, Whyte-Melville— Heaven knows

What others. Now, I thought, I was to see

Their habitat, though like the Miller of Dee,

I cared for none and no one cared for me.

III

A light blue carpet on the stair

And tall young footmen everywhere,

Tall young men with English faces

Standing rigidly in their places,

Rows and rows of them stiff and staid

In powder and breeches and bright gold braid;

And high above them on the wall

Hung other English faces-all

Part of the pattern of English life—

General Sir Charles, and his pretty wife,

Admirals, Lords-Lieutenant of Shires,

Men who were served by these footmen’s sires

At their great parties-none of them knowing

How soon or late they would all be going

In plainer dress to a sterner strife-

Another pattern of English life.

I went up the stairs between them all,

Strange and frightened and shy and small,

And as I entered the ballroom door,

Saw something I had never seen before

Except in portraits— a stout old guest

With a broad blue ribbon across his breast—

That blue as deep as the southern sea,

Bluer than skies can ever be—

The Countess of Salisbury—Edward the Third—

No damn merit— the Duke— I heard

My own voice saying; ‘Upon my word,

The garter!’ and clapped my hands like a child.

Some one beside me turned and smiled,

And looking down at me said: “I fancy,

You’re Bertie’s Australian cousin Nancy.

He toId me to tell you that he’d be late

At the Foreign Office and not to wait

Supper for him, but to go with me,

And try to behave as if I were he.”

I should have told him on the spot

That I had no cousin—that I was not

Australian Nancy—that my name

Was Susan Dunne, and that I came

From a small white town on a deep-cut bay

In the smallest state in the U.S.A.

I meant to tell him, but changed my mind—

I needed a friend, and he seemed kind;

So I put my gloved hand into his glove,

And we danced together— and fell in love.

IV

Young and in love-how magical the phrase!

How magical the fact! Who has not yearned

Over young lovers when to their amaze

They fall in love and find their love returned,

And the lights brighten, and their eyes are clear

To see God’s image in their common clay.

Is it the music of the spheres they hear?

Is it the prelude to that noble play,

The drama of Joined Lives? Ah, they forget

They cannot write their parts; the bell has rung,

The curtain rises and the stage is set

For tragedy-they were in love and young.

V

We went to the Tower,

We went to the Zoo,

We saw every flower

In the gardens at Kew.

We saw King Charles a-prancing

On his long-tailed horse,

And thought him more entrancing

Than better kings, of course.

At a strange early hour,

In St. James’s palace yard,

We watched in a shower

The changing of the guard.

And I said, what a pity,

To have just a week to spend,

When London is a city

Whose beauties never end!

VI

When the sun shines on England, it atones

For low-hung leaden skies, and rain and dim

Moist fogs that paint the verdure on her stones

And fill her gentle rivers to the brim.

When the sun shines on England, shafts of light

Fall on far towers and hills and dark old trees,

And hedge-bound meadows of a green as bright—

As bright as is the blue of tropic seas.

When the sun shines, it is as if the face

Of some proud man relaxed his haughty stare,

And smiled upon us with a sudden grace,

Flattering because its coming is so rare.