Toll! Toll! Because There Ends Tonight Lyrics

1. Toll! toll! because there ends tonight
An Empire old and vast:
An Empire of unquestion'd right
O'er present and o'er past.
Stretching wide from East to West,
Ruling over every breast,
Each nation, kindred, tongue and caste.

2. Toll! toll! because a monarch dies,
Whose tyrant statutes ran
From polar snows to tropic skies,
From Greenland to Japan:
Crowded cities, lonely glens,
Oceans, mountains, shores and fens,
All own'd him sovran lord of man.

3. Toll! toll! because that monarch fought
Right fiercely for his own;
And utmost craft and valour brought
Before he was o'erthrown:
He the lord, and man the slave:
His the kingdom of the grave,
And all its vasty dim unknown.

4. Joy! joy! because a Babe is born,
Who, after many a toil,
The scorner's pride shall laugh to scorn,
And work the foiler's foil:
God, as Man, the earth bath trod:
Therefore man shall be as God,
And reaping, reap the spoiler's spoil.