7. A people's voice! we are a people yet. 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 In thunder, silent; yet remember all He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke; Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, With rugged maxims hewn from life; Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke Truth-lover was our English Duke; Whatever record leap to light He never shall be shamed. 8. Lo, the leader in these glorious wars He, on whom from both her open hands 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 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. 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 |