Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed;
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple, his
heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
10
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare° was of us, Milton° was for us,
°13
Burns,° Shelley,° were with us,—they
watch from their graves! °14
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
We shall march prospering—not through his
presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not
from his lyre:
Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his
quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade
aspire: 20
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath
untrod,
One more devil’s-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult
to God!
Life’s night begins: let him never come
back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation, and
pain,
Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of
twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike
gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own;
30
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!
* * * *
*
