7.

A people's voice! we are a people yet.
Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers;
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set
His Saxon in blown seas and storming showers,
We have a voice, with which to pay the debt
Of boundless love and reverence and regret
To those great men who fought, and kept it ours.
And keep it ours, O God, from brute control;
O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole,
And save the one true seed of freedom sown
Betwixt a people and their ancient throne,
That sober freedom out of which there springs
Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ;
For, saving that, ye help to save mankind

Till public wrong be crumbled into dust,

And drill the raw world for the march of mind,

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.

But wink no more in slothful overtrust.

Remember him who led your

hosts;

He bad you guard the sacred coasts.

Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall;

His voice is silent in your council-hall

For ever; and whatever tempests lour
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;
Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow
Thro' either babbling world of high and low;
Whose life was work, whose language rife

With rugged maxims hewn from life;
Who never spoke against a foe;

Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke
All great self-seekers trampling on the right:
Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named ;

Truth-lover was our English Duke;

Whatever record leap to light

He never shall be shamed.

8.

Lo, the leader in these glorious wars
Now to glorious burial slowly borne,
Follow'd by the brave of other lands,

He, on whom from both her open hands
Lavish Honour shower'd all her stars,

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

Into glossy purples, which outredden
All voluptuous garden-roses.

Not once or twice in our fair island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory:
He, that ever following her commands,
On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won
His path upward, and prevail'd,

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled
Are close upon the shining table-lands

To which our God Himself is moon and sun.

Such was he: his work is done :

But while the races of mankind endure,

Let his great example stand

Colossal, seen of every land,

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure;

Till in all lands and thro' all human story

The path of duty be the way to glory :

And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame

For 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.

9.

Peace, his triumph will be sung

By some yet unmoulded tongue

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.

Ours the pain, be his the gain!

More than is of man's degree