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To Milton

by Oscar Wilde, 1881

Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away
   From these white cliffs, and high-embattled towers;
   This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours
 Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,
 And the age changed unto a mimic play
   Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:
   For all our pomp and pageantry and powers
 We are but fit to delve the common clay,
 Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
   This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
   By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
 Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
   Which bare a triple empire in her hand
   When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!

Published in Poems
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