| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The World’s May-Queen | | By Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) |
| | | WHEN Spring comes back to England | |
| And crowns her brows with May, | |
| Round the merry moonlit world | |
| She goes the greenwood way: | |
| She throws a rose to Italy, | 5 |
| A fleur-de-lys to France; | |
| But round her regal morris-ring | |
| The seas of England dance. | |
| |
| When Spring comes back to England | |
| And dons her robe of green, | 10 |
| There ’s many a nation garlanded, | |
| But England is the Queen; | |
| She ’s Queen, she ’s Queen of all the world | |
| Beneath the laughing sky, | |
| For the nations go a-Maying | 15 |
| When they hear the New Year cry— | |
| |
| ‘Come over the water to England, | |
| My old love, my new love, | |
| Come over the water to England | |
| In showers of flowery rain; | 20 |
| Come over the water to England, | |
| April, my true love, | |
| And tell the heart of England | |
| The Spring is here again!’ | | | | |
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