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| O, MANY a river song has sung and dearer made the names | |
| Of Tweed and Ayr and Nith and Doon, but who has sung our Thames? | |
| And much green Kent and Oxfordshire and Middlesex it shames | |
| That they ’ve not given long since one song to their own noble Thames. | |
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| O, clear are England’s waters all, her rivers, streams, and rills, | 5 |
| Flowing stilly through her valleys lone and winding by her hills; | |
| But river, stream, or rivulet through all her breadth who names | |
| For beauty and for pleasantness with our own pleasant Thames. | |
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| The men of grassy Devonshire the Tamar well may love, | |
| And well may rocky Derbyshire be noisy of her Dove; | 10 |
| But with all their grassy beauty, nor Dove nor Tamar shames, | |
| Nor Wye, beneath her winding woods, our own green, pleasant Thames. | |
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| I care not if it rises in the Seven Wells’ grassy springs, | |
| Or at Thames’ head whence the rushy Churn its gleaming waters brings, | |
| From the Cotswolds to the heaving Nore, our praise and love it claims, | 15 |
| From the Isis’ fount to the salt-sea Nore, how pleasant is the Thames! | |
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| O, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire well its gleaming waters love, | |
| And Oxfordshire and Berkshire rank it all their streams above; | |
| Nor Middlesex nor Essex nor Kent nor Surrey claims | |
| A river equal in their love to their own noble Thames. | 20 |
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| How many a brimming river swells its waters deep and clear, | |
| The Windrush and the Cherwell and the Thame to Dorset dear, | |
| The Kennet and the Loddon that have music in their names, | |
| But no grandeur like to that in yours, my own mast-shadowed Thames. | |
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| How many a city of renown beside its green course stands! | 25 |
| How many a town of wealth and fame, how famous through all lands! | |
| Fair Oxford, pleasant Abingdon and Reading, world-known names, | |
| Crowned Windsor, Hampton, Richmond, all add glory to our Thames. | |
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| But what wide river through the world, though broad its waters be, | |
| A London with its might and wealth upon its banks shall see? | 30 |
| The greatness of earth’s greatest mart, that to herself she claims, | |
| The world’s great wonder, England’s boast, gives glory to our Thames. | |
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| What hugest river of the earth such fleets as hers e’er bore, | |
| Such tribute rich from every land, such wealth from every shore, | |
| Such memories of mighty ones whose memories are fames, | 35 |
| Who from their mighty deeds afar came homewards up the Thames? | |
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| In Westminster’s old Abbey’s vaults, what buried greatness lies! | |
| Nelson and Wellington sleep there where Wren’s dome fills the skies; | |
| Here stands proud England’s senate-house with all its mighty fames, | |
| These are the boast of Englishmen, the glory of our Thames. | 40 |
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| How many a river of the earth flows through a land of slaves! | |
| Her banks are thronged with freemen’s homes, are heaped with freemen’s graves; | |
| Name the free races of the earth, and he who tells them names | |
| Freemen of the free blood of those who dwell beside our Thames. | |
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| How many a heart in many a land yearns to you with what pride, | 45 |
| What love, by the far Ganges’ banks, by the green Murray’s side! | |
| By Ohio’s waves, Columbia’s stream, how many a free heart names, | |
| O, with what love! the old dear homes they left beside the Thames. | |
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| River of England, your green banks no arméd feet, thank God! | |
| No hostile hosts, no stranger ranks for centuries past have trod; | 50 |
| O, may no foemen ever come, to threat your homes with flames! | |
| But should they come we ’ll show them soon what hearts are by the Thames. | |
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| Flow on in glory, still flow on, O Thames, unto the sea, | |
| Through glories gone, through grandeurs here, through greatness still to be: | |
| Through the free homes of England flow, and may yet higher fames, | 55 |
| Still nobler glories, star your course, O my own native Thames! | |
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