Gordon

Idle although our homage be and vain,Who loudly through the door of silence pressAnd vie in zeal to crown death's nakedness,Not therefore shall melodious lips refrainThy praises, gentlest warrior without stain,Denied the happy garland of success,Foil'd by dark fate, but glorious none the less,Greatest of losers, on the lone peak slainOf Alp-like virtue. Not to-day, and notTo-morrow, shall thy spirit's splendour beOblivion's victim; but when God shall findAll human grandeur among men forgot,Then only shall the world, grown old and blind,Cease, in her dotage, to remember Thee.

Arab, Egyptian, English--by the swordCloven, or pierced with spears, or bullet-mown--In equal fate they sleep: their dust is grownA portion of the fiery sands abhorred.And thou, what hast thou, hero, for reward,Thou, England's glory and her shame? O'erthrownThou liest, unburied, or with grave unknownAs his to whom on Nebo's height the LordShowed all the land of Gilead, unto Dan;Judah sea-fringed; Manasseh and Ephraim;And Jericho palmy, to where Zoar lay;And in a valley of Moab buried him,Over against Beth-Peor, but no manKnows of his sepulchre unto this day.

O happy hearts, O youths and damsels, prayWhat new and wondrous thing hath chanced to-day,O happy hearts, what wondrous thing and new?Set the gold sun with kinglier-mightful glance,Rose the maid-moon with queenlier countenance,Came the stars forth a merrier madder crew,Than ever sun or maiden-moon before,Or jostling stars that shook the darkness' floorWith night-wide tremor 'neath their dizzy dance?

Strong is the Sun, but strong alway was he;The Moon is fair, but ever fair showed she;The Stars are many, and who hath known them few?As now they be, so heretofore were they:What is the wondrous thing hath chanced to-day,O happy hearts, the wondrous thing and new,Whereof ye are glad together even moreThan of the sunlight or the moonlight orThe light o' the stars that strow the milky-way?

For all your many maidens have the headIn goodly festal wise engarlanded,With flowers at noon the banquet of the bees,And leaves that in some grove at midday grew:And ever since the falling of the dewYour streets are full of pomps and pageantries,Laughter and song, feasting and dancing:--nay,Surely some wondrous thing hath chanced to-day;O happy hearts, what wondrous thing and new?

No, no, ye need not answer any word!Heard have we all--who lives and hath not heard?--What thing the sovran Fates have done to-day;Who turn the tides of life which way they please,And sit themselves aloft, aloof, at ease:Dwellers in courts of marble silence they.No need to ask what thing the Fates have doneBetween the sunrise and the set of sun,Mute-moving in their twilight fastnesses!

Changeless, aloft, aloof, mute-moving, dim,In ancient fastnesses of twilight--himHave they not sent this day, the long-foretold,The long-foretold and much-desired, of whom'Twas whilom written in the rolls of doomHow in a dream he should this land behold,And hither come from worldwide wandering,Hither where all the folk should hail him king,Our king foredestined from his mother's womb?

Long time he tarried, but the time is past,And he hath come ye waited for, at last:The long-foretold, the much-desired, hath come.And ye command your minstrels noise abroadWith lyre and tongue your joyance and his laud,And, sooth to say, the minstrels are not dumb.And ever in the pauses of our chant,So for exceeding perfect joy ye pant,We hear the beating of your hearts applaud!

And she our Queen--ah, who shall tell what hoursShe bode his coming in her palace-towers,Unmated she in all the land alone?'Twas yours, O youths and maids, to clasp and kiss;Desiring and desired ye had your bliss:The Queen she sat upon her loveless throne.Sleeping she saw his face, but could not findIts phantom's phantom when she waked, nor windAbout her finger one gold hair of his.

Often when evening sobered all the air,No doubt but she would sit and marvel whereHe tarried, by the bounds of what strange sea;And peradventure look at intervalsForth of the windows of her palace walls,And watch the gloaming darken fount and tree;And think on twilight shores, with dreaming cavesFull of the groping of bewildered waves,Full of the murmur of their hollow halls.

As flowers desire the kisses of the rain,She his, and many a year desired in vain:She waits no more who waited long enow.Nor listeth he to wander any moreWho went as go the winds from sea to shore,From shore to sea who went as the winds go.The winds do seek a place of rest; the flowersLook for the rain; but in a while the showersCome, and the winds lie down, their wanderings o'er.