Divides threefold to show the fruit within: | Full cold my greeting was and dry; Then, wondering, ask'd her "Are you from the farm?" STILL on the tower stood the vane, And saw the altar cold and bare. A clog of lead was round my feet, A band of pain across my brow; She faintly smiled, she hardly moved; I saw with half-unconscious eye She wore the colors I approved. "Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE Before you hear my marriage vow." II. I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song That mock'd the wholesome human heart, And then we met in wrath and wrong, We met, but only meant to part. DUKE OF WELLINGTON. I. BURY the Great Duke With an empire's lamentation, Let us bury the Great Duke To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, Mourn, for to us he seems the last, Remembering all his greatness in the Past. No more in soldier fashion will he greet With lifted hand the gazer in the street. O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute: Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, Whole in himself, a common good. O good gray head which all men knew, O voice from which their omens all men drew, O iron nerve to true occasion true, O fall'n at length that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew ! Such was he whom we deplore. Render thanks to the Giver, And a reverent people behold Let the bell be toll'd: And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd; And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd Thro' the dome of the golden cross; For many a time in many a clime The tyrant, and asserts his claim Preserve a broad approach of fame, VI. Who is he that cometh, like an honor'd guest, With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest, With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest? Mighty Seaman, this is he Was great by land as thou by sea. mous man, The greatest sailor since our world began. The great World-victor's victor will be Now, to the roll of muffled drums, seen no more. V. All is over and done : Render thanks to the Giver, To thee the greatest soldier comes; Was great by land as thou by sea; For this is England's greatest son, And barking for the thrones of kings; A day of onsets of despair! away; Last, the Prussian trumpet blew ; So great a soldier taught us there, And thro' the centuries let a people's voice A people's voice, The proof and echo of all human fame, A people's voice, when they rejoice At civic revel and pomp and game, Attest their great commander's claim With honor, honor, honor, honor to him, Eternal honor to his name. VII. 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 Briton 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. His voice is silent in your council-hall Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 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; Lo, the leader in these glorious wars The path of duty was the way to glory: Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 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, And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure: Till in all lands and thro' all human story For many and many an age proclaim IX. By some yet unmoulded tongue For one about whose patriarchal knee O peace, it is a day of pain For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, trust. THE DAISY. WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. O 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 To meet the sun and sunny waters, That only heaved with a summer swell. What slender campanili grew How young Columbus seem'd to rove, Now watching high on mountain And steering, now, from a purple cove, Now pacing mute by ocean's rim I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, And drank, and loyally drank to him. Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen Or olive-hoary cape in ocean; Where oleanders flush'd the bed We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, A princely people's awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old. At Florence too what golden hours, In bright vignettes, and each complete, Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet, Or palace, how the city glitter'd, Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet. But when we crost the Lombard plain Remember what a plague of rain; Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma ; And stern and sad (so rare the smiles The height, the space, the gloom, the A mount of marble, a hundred spires ! I climb'd the roofs at break of day; Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. I stood among the silent statues, And statued pinnacles, mute as they. How faintly-flushed, how phantom-fair, Was Monte Rosa hanging there A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys And snowy dells in a golden air. Remember how we came at last Had blown the lake beyond his limit, And all was flooded; and how we past From Como, when the light was gray, And in my head, for half the day, The rich Virgilian rustic measure To that fair port below the castle The moonlight touching o'er a terrace One tall Agave above the lake. What more? we took our last adieu, And up the snowy Splugen drew, But ere we reach'd the highest summit I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. It told of England then to me, And now it tells of Italy. O love, we two shall go no longer To lands of summer across the sea; |