We have a voice, with which to pay the debt To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. And save the one true seed of freedom sown Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, Perchance our greatness will increase ; And sprinkled on the sheaves of peace. And O remember him who led your hosts; Respect his sacred warning; guard your coasts: His voice is silent in your council-hall For ever; and whatever tempests lower For ever silent; even if they broke In thunder, silent-yet remember all He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke ; Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power. His eighty winters freeze with one rebuke He never shall be shamed. VIII. Lo the leader in these glorious wars And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. Yea, let all good things await Him who cares not to be great, But as he saves or serves the state. Not once or twice in our rough island-story The path of duty was the way to glory. He that walks it, only thirsting For the right, and learns to deaden Love of self before his journey closes, He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting Not once or twice in our fair island-story, Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled To which our God Himself is moon and sun. He has not fail'd: he hath prevail'd: So let the men whose hearths he saved from shame Thro' many and many an age proclaim At civic revel and pomp and game, And when the long-illumined cities flame, Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, Eternal honour to his name. IX. Peace, his triumph will be sung Far on in summers that we shall not see. Peace, it is a day of pain For one about whose patriarchal knee Late the little children clung. For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. More than is of man's degree Must be with us, watching here At this, our great solemnity. Whom we see not we revere. From talk of battles loud and vain, And brawling memories all too free As befits a solemn fane: For solemn, too, this day are we. O friends, we doubt not that for one so true There must be other nobler work to do Than when he fought at Waterloo, And Victor he must ever be. Tho' worlds on worlds in myriad myriads roll Round us, each with different powers, And other forms of life than ours, What know we greater than the soul? 16 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE oF WELLINGTON. The man is gone, who seem'd so great, Something far advanced in State, And that he wears a truer crown And in the vast cathedral leave him. God accept him, Christ receive him. BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. |