With rugged maxims hewn from life; Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke He never shall be shamed. 8. Lo, the leader in these glorious wars And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 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 Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 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 honor, honor, honor, honor to him, 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: O peace, it is a day of pain For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain Ours the pain, be his the gain ! From talk of battles loud and vain, And brawling memories all too free For such a wise humility As befits a solemn fane : We revere, and while we hear The tides of Music's golden sea Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill What know we greater than the soul? On God and Godlike men we build our trust. Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears: The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears: The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; He is gone who seem'd so great. Gone; but nothing can bereave him Of the force he made his own And that he wears a truer crown Lay your earthly fancies down, And in the vast cathedral leave him. THE DAISY. WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. LOVE, what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine. What Roman strength Turbia show'd How like a gem, beneath, the city How richly down the rocky dell What slender campanili grew By bays, the peacock's neck in hue; Where, here and there, on sandy beaches A milky-bell'd amaryllis blew. How young Columbus seem'd to rove, Yet present in his natal grove, Now watching high on mountain cornice, And steering, now, from a purple cove, Now pacing mute by ocean's rim; I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Not the clipt palm of which they boast; But distant color, happy hamlet, A moulder'd citadel on the coast, Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen Where oleanders flush'd the bed We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, Those niched shapes of noble mould, A princely people's awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old. At Florence too what golden hours, In bright vignettes, and each complete, But when we crost the Lombard plain Remember what a plague of rain ; Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma ; At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. |