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 rumor 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.

VIII

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 Honor 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,

ENG. POEMS-22

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205

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

210

215

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

220

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

225

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,
Eternal honor to his name.

230

IX

Peace, his triumph will be sung

By some yet unmoulded tongue

Far on in summers that we shall not see.

235

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
Once the weight and fate of Europe hung.

240

Ours the pain, be his the gain !

More than is of man's degree
Must be with us, watching here
At this, our great solemnity.
Whom we see not we revere;
We revere, and we refrain

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

Setting toward eternity,

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we,
Until we doubt not that for one so true
There must be other nobler work to do
Than when he fought at Waterloo,
And Victor he must ever be.

For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill
And break the shore, and evermore
Make and break, and work their will,

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Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll

Round us, each with different powers,

And other forms of life than ours,

What know we greater than the soul?

265

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 seemed so great

Gone, but nothing can bereave him

Of the force he made his own

270

Being here, and we believe him
Something far advanced in State,
And that he wears a truer crown

Than any wreath that man can weave him.
Speak no more of his renown,

Lay your earthly fancies down,

And in the vast cathedral leave him,

God accept him, Christ receive him!

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

I

HALF a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.
'Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said.
Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

II

Forward the Light Brigade !'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew

Some one had blunder'd.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

III

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

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