A Pageant Of Elizabeth

by Rudyard Kipling

　　Like Princes crowned they bore them, Like Demi-Gods they wrought, When the New World lay before them In headlong fact and thought. Fate and their foemen proved them Above all meed of praise, And Gloriana loved them, And Shakespeare wrote them plays! . . . . . . . Now Valour, Youth, and Life's delight break forth In flames of wondrous deed, and thought sublime, Lightly to mould new worlds or lightly loose Words that shall shake and shape all after-time! Giants with giants, wits with wits engage, And England-England-England takes the breath Of morning, body and soul, till the great Age Fulfills in one great chord: Elizabeth!