Part 4

8. Lo, the leader in these glorious wars Now to glorious burial slowly borne, Followed by the brave of other lands, He, on whom from both her open hands Lavish Honour showered 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, 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 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: 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. 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; 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? 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 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. But speak no more of his renown, Lay your earthly fancies down, And in the vast cathedral leave him. God accept him, Christ receive him.

1862.

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 In ruin, by the mountain road; How like a gem, beneath, the city Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd.

How richly down the rocky dell The torrent vineyard streaming fell To meet the sun and sunny waters, That only heaved with a summer swell.

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; Till, in a narrow street and dim, I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, And drank, and loyally drank to him.

Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Not the clipt palm of which they boast; But distant colour, happy hamlet, A moulder'd citadel on the coast,

Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen A light amid its olives green; Or olive-hoary cape in ocean; Or rosy blossom in hot ravine,

Where oleanders flush'd the bed Of silent torrents, gravel-spread; And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten Of ice, far up on a mountain head.

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 those long galleries, were ours; What drives about the fresh Cascinè, Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers.

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; At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain.

And stern and sad (so rare the smiles Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles; Porch-pillars on the lion resting, And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles.

O Milan, O the chanting quires, The giant windows' blazon'd fires, The height, the space, the gloom, the glory! 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-flush'd, 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 To Como; shower and storm and blast 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 Of Lari Maxume, all the way.

Like ballad-burthen music, kept, As on The Lariano crept To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept;

Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake A cypress in the moonlight shake. The moonlight touching o'er a terrace One tall Agavè 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;

So dear a life your arms enfold Whose crying is a cry for gold: Yet here to-night in this dark city, When ill and weary, alone and cold,

I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry, This nurseling of another sky Still in the little book you lent me. And where you tenderly laid it by:

And I forgot the clouded Forth, The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, The bitter east, the misty summer And gray metropolis of the North.

Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, Perchance, to charm a vacant brain, Perchance, to dream you still beside me, My fancy fled to the South again.

TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE.

Come, when no graver cares employ, God-father, come and see your boy: Your presence will be sun in winter, Making the little one leap for joy.

For, being of that honest few, Who give the Fiend himself his due, Should eighty-thousand college-councils Thunder 'Anathema,' friend, at you;

Should all our churchmen foam in spite At you, so careful of the right, Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight;

Where, far from noise and smoke of town, I watch the twilight falling brown All round a careless-order'd garden Close to the ridge of a noble down.

You'll have no scandal while you dine, But honest talk and wholesome wine. And only hear the magpie gossip Garrulous under a roof of pine:

For groves of pine on either hand, To break the blast of winter, stand; And further on, the hoary Channel Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand;

Where, if below the milky steep Some ship of battle slowly creep, And on thro' zones of light and shadow Glimmer away to the lonely deep,

We might discuss the Northern sin Which made a selfish war begin; Dispute the claims, arrange the chances; Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win:

Or whether war's avenging rod Shall lash all Europe into blood; Till you should turn to dearer matters, Dear to the man that is dear to God;

How best to help the slender store, How mend the dwellings, of the poor; How gain in life, as life advances, Valour and charity more and more.

Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet; But when the wreath of March has blossom'd, Crocus, anemone, violet,

Or later, pay one visit here, For those are few we hold as dear; Nor pay but one, but come for many, Many and many a happy year.

January, 1854.

WILL.

1. O well for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer long; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, Who seems a promontory of rock, That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, In middle ocean meets the surging shock, Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd.

2. But ill for him who, bettering not with time, Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime, Or seeming-genial venial fault, Recurring and suggesting still! He seems as one whose footsteps halt, Toiling in immeasurable sand, And o'er a weary sultry land, Far beneath a blazing vault, Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, The city sparkles like a grain of salt.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

1. 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.

2. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blunder' d: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die, Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

3. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.

4. Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air, Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre-stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred.

5. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred.

6. When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wonder'd. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.