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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, | |
| Mourning when their leaders fall, | 5 |
| Warriors carry the warrior’s pall, | |
| And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. | |
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II Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore? | |
| Here, in streaming London’s central roar. | |
| Let the sound of those he wrought for, | 10 |
| And the feet of those he fought for, | |
| Echo round his bones for evermore. | |
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III Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, | |
| As fits an universal woe, | |
| Let the long long procession go, | 15 |
| And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, | |
| And let the mournful martial music blow; | |
| The last great Englishman is low. | |
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IV Mourn, for to us he seems the last, | |
| Remembering all his greatness in the Past. | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| Foremost captain of his time, | |
| Rich in saving common-sense, | |
| And, as the greatest only are, | |
| In his simplicity sublime. | |
| O good grey head which all men knew, | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| The long self-sacrifice of life is o’er. | |
| The great World-victor’s victor will be seen no more. | |
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V All is over and done: | |
| Render thanks to the Giver, | |
| England, for thy son. | 45 |
| Let the bell be toll’d. | |
| Render thanks to the Giver, | |
| And render him to the mould. | |
| Under the cross of gold | |
| That shines over city and river, | 50 |
| 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: | 55 |
| Bright let it be with its blazon’d deeds, | |
| Dark in its funeral fold. | |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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 | 65 |
| 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 | 70 |
| 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, | 75 |
| To such a name for ages long, | |
| To such a name, | |
| Preserve a broad approach of fame, | |
| And ever-echoing avenues of song. | |
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VI Who is he that cometh, like an honour’d guest, | 80 |
| 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. | |
| Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, | 85 |
| The greatest sailor since our world began. | |
| Now, to the roll of muffled drums, | |
| To thee the greatest soldier comes; | |
| For this is he | |
| Was great by land as thou by sea; | 90 |
| His foes were thine; he kept us free; | |
| O give him welcome, this is he | |
| Worthy of our gorgeous rites, | |
| And worthy to be laid by thee; | |
| For this is England’s greatest son, | 95 |
| He that gain’d a hundred fights, | |
| Nor ever lost an English gun; | |
| This is he that far away | |
| Against the myriads of Assaye | |
| Clash’d with his fiery few and won; | 100 |
| And underneath another sun, | |
| Warring on a later day, | |
| Round affrighted Lisbon drew | |
| The treble works, the vast designs | |
| Of his labour’d rampart-lines, | 105 |
| Where he greatly stood at bay, | |
| Whence he issued forth anew, | |
| And ever great and greater grew, | |
| Beating from the wasted vines | |
| Back to France her banded swarms, | 110 |
| Back to France with countless blows, | |
| Till o’er the hills her eagles flew | |
| Past the Pyrenean pines, | |
| Follow’d up in valley and glen | |
| With blare of bugle, clamour of men, | 115 |
| Roll of cannon and clash of arms, | |
| And England pouring on her foes. | |
| Such a war had such a close. | |
| Again their ravening eagle rose | |
| In anger, wheel’d on Europe-shadowing wings, | 120 |
| And barking for the thrones of kings; | |
| Till one that sought but Duty’s iron crown | |
| On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down; | |
| A day of onsets of despair! | |
| Dash’d on every rocky square | 125 |
| Their surging charges foam’d themselves away; | |
| Last, the Prussian trumpet blew; | |
| Thro’ the long-tormented air | |
| Heaven flash’d a sudden jubilant ray, | |
| And down we swept and charged and overthrew. | 130 |
| So great a soldier taught us there, | |
| What long-enduring hearts could do | |
| In that world’s-earthquake, Waterloo! | |
| Mighty Seaman, tender and true, | |
| And pure as he from taint of craven guile, | 135 |
| O saviour of the silver-coasted isle, | |
| O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, | |
| If aught of things that here befall | |
| Touch a spirit among things divine, | |
| If love of country move thee there at all, | 140 |
| Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine! | |
| And thro’ the centuries let a people’s voice | |
| In full acclaim, | |
| A people’s voice, | |
| The proof and echo of all human fame, | 145 |
| A people’s voice, when they rejoice | |
| At civic revel and pomp and game, | |
| Attest their great commander’s claim | |
| With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, | |
| Eternal honour to his name. | 150 |
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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, | 155 |
| 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 | 160 |
| 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; | 165 |
| 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. | 170 |
| 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 | 175 |
| 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; | 180 |
| Who let the turbid streams of rumour 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; | 185 |
| 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 | 190 |
| He never shall be shamed. | |
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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 | 195 |
| Lavish Honour 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. | 200 |
| 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, | 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: | 210 |
| 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 | 215 |
| 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 | 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 honour, honour, honour, honour to him, | 230 |
| Eternal honour to his name. | |
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IX 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 | 235 |
| 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, | 245 |
| 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: | 250 |
| 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 | 255 |
| 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 | 260 |
| 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? | 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; | 270 |
| 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, | 275 |
| 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. | 280 |
| God accept him, Christ receive him. | |
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