Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley, Hear a song that echoes cheerly From the river winding clearly, Down to towered Camelot.

And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

Better not to be at all Than not to be noble.

Sweet were the days when I was all unknown, But when my name was lifted up, the storm Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it. Right well know I that fame is half disfame.

There twice a day the Severn fills; The salt sea-water passes by, And hushes half the babbling Wye, And makes a silence in the hills.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

That man's the best cosmopolite Who loves his native country best.