Which yet with such a framework scarce A red sail, or a white; and far beyond, Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France.

could be.

Then rose a little feud betwixt the two,
Betwixt the mockers and the realists:
And I, betwixt them both, to please them
both,

And yet to give the story as it rose,
I moved as in a strange diagonal,

And maybe neither pleased myself nor
them.

'Look there, a garden!' said my

college friend,

The Tory member's elder son, and there! God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off,

And keeps our Britain, whole within herself,

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled

part

In our dispute: the sequel of the tale

Had touch'd her; and she sat, she pluck'd the grass,

She flung it from her, thinking: last, she fixt

Some sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made,

Some patient force to change then when we will,

Some civic manhood firm against the crowd

A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 'You tell us what we are' who might But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden

For she was cramm'd with theories out of The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, The king is scared, the soldier will not

books,

But that there rose a shout: the gates

were closed

fight,

The little boys begin to shoot and stab,

At sunset, and the crowd were swarming A kingdom topples over with a shriek

now,

To take their leave, about the garden rails.

Like an old woman, and down rolls the

world

In mock heroics stranger than our own;

So I and some went out to these we Revolts, republics, revolutions, most

climb'd

No graver than a schoolboys' barring out; The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw Too comic for the solemn things they are, The happy valleys, half in light, and half Too solemn for the comic touches in them, Far-shadowing from the west, a land of Like our wild Princess with as wise a

Gray halls alone among their massive As some of theirs-God bless the narrow

Trim hamlets; here and there a rustic I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.'

tower

Half-lost in belts of hop and breadths of

wheat;

'Have patience,' I replied, ourselves are full

The shimmering glimpses of a stream; Of social wrong; and maybe wildest

Are but the needful preludes of the truth: Premier or king! Why should not these

Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it I likewise, and in groups they stream'd

Who spoke few words and pithy, such as ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE

From the elms, and shook the branches Let us bury the Great Duke

Where shall we lay the man whom we The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er.

deplore?

Here, in streaming London's central roar.
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,
Echo round his bones for evermore.

III.

Lead out the pageant : sad and slow,

As fits an universal woe,

Let the long long procession go,

The great World-victor's victor will be

seen no more.

V.

All is over and done :
Render thanks to the Giver,
England, for thy son.

Let the bell be toll'd.

Render thanks to the Giver,
And render him to the mould.

And let the sorrowing crowd about it Under the cross of gold

grow,

And let the mournful martial music blow;
The last great Englishman is low.

IV.

Mourn, for to us he seems the last,

That shines over city and river,
There he shall rest for ever
Among the wise and the bold.
Let the bell be toll'd:

And a reverent people behold
The towering car, the sable steeds :

Remembering all his greatness in the Bright let it be with its blazon'd deeds,

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 :

Dark in its funeral fold.
Let the bell be toll'd:

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd;

Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, And the sound of the sorrowing anthem The statesman-warrior, moderate, reso

lute,

Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crime,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich ir saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.

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 !

roll'd

Thro' the dome of the golden cross;
And the volleying cannon thunder his
loss;

He knew their voices of old.
For many a time in many a clime
His captain's-ear has heard them boom
Bellowing victory, bellowing doom :
When he with those deep voices wrought,
Guarding realms and kings from shame;
With those deep voices our dead captain
taught

The tyrant, and asserts his claim

In that dread sound to the great name,
Which he has worn so pure of blame,
In praise and in dispraise the same,
A man of well-attemper'd frame.
O civic muse, to such a name,

Beyond the Pyrenean pines,
Follow'd up in valley and glen
With blare of bugle, clamour of men,
Roll of cannon and clash of arms,
And England pouring on her foes.
Such a war had such a close.

Who is he that cometh, like an honour'd Again their ravening eagle rose

With a nation weeping, and breaking on Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown

VII.

He spoke among you, and the Man who

spoke ;

Who never sold the truth to serve the hour,

A people's voice! we are a people yet. Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget, Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; Powers; Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow Thank Him who isled us here, and Thro' either babbling world of high and roughly set low;

His Briton in blown seas and storming Whose life was work, whose language showers, rife

We have a voice, with which to pay the With rugged maxims hewn from life; debt Who never spoke against a foe;

Of boundless love and reverence and re- Whose eighty winters freeze with one

gret

To those great men who fought, and kept All great self-seekers trampling on the

it ours.

rebuke

right:

named;

And keep it ours, O God, from brute Truth-teller was our England's Alfred

control;

the soul

O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, Truth-lover was our English Duke;
Whatever record leap to light
Of Europe, keep our noble England He never shall be shamed.

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns Not once or twice in our rough island

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

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 :