Wherefore with honour lay him in his grave,
And thereby shall increase of honour come
Unto their arms who vanquished one so wise,
So valiant, so renowned.

Sir Henry Taylor.

The Burden of the State

HE burden of the State is great
And heavy bears the diadem.
Such faithful sort as minister,
What may they haply say to Her?
What shall She say to them?

For such as serve and such as reign
Have each their sorrows closely kept.
And they must closely keep their pain,
And take the burden up again
Forgetting that they have wept.

A Great Man

R. C. Legge.

HAT man is great, and he alone,
Who serves a greatness not his own,
For neither praise nor pelf:

Content to know, and be unknown:
Whole in himself.

Strong is that man, he only strong,
To whose well-ordered will belong,
For service and delight,

All powers that, in the face of Wrong,
Establish Right.

(B 838)

23

And free he is, and only he,
Who, from his tyrant passions free,
By Fortune undismayed,

Hath power upon himself, to be
By himself obeyed.

If such a man there be, where’er
Beneath the sun and moon he fare,
He cannot fare amiss.

Great Nature hath him in her care,

Her cause is his:

Who holds by everlasting law

Which neither chance nor change can flaw· Whose steadfast course is one

With whatsoever forces draw

The ages on:

Who hath not bowed his honest head
To base Occasion: nor, in dread

Of Duty, shunned her eye:

Nor truckled to loud times: nor wed

His heart to a lie:

Nor feared to follow, in the offence
Of false opinion, his own sense

Of justice unsubdued;

Nor shrunk from any consequence
Of doing good.

He looks his Angel in the face

Without a blush: nor heeds disgrace,
Whom nought disgraceful done
Disgraces. Who knows nothing base
Fears nothing known.

Not morselled out from day to day
In feverish wishes, nor the prey

Of hours that have no plan,
His life is whole, to give away
To God and man.

For though he live aloof from ken,
The world's unwitnessed denizen,
The love within him stirs

Abroad, and with the hearts of men
His own confers.

He nothing human alien deems
Unto himself, nor disesteems

Man's meanest claim upon

him:

And, where he walks, the mere sunbeams Drop blessings on him:

Because they know him Nature's friend,

On whom she doth delight to tend

With loving-kindness ever, Helping and heartening to the end His high endeavour.

Therefore, though mortal made, he can
Work miracles. The uncommon man
Leaves nothing commonplace.
He is the marvellous. To span
The abyss of space,

The orb of time, is his by faith,

And his, whilst breathing human breath,

To taste, before he dies,

The deep eventual calm of death,

Life's latest prize.

If such a man there be, where'er
Beneath the sun and moon he fare,
He doth not fare alone.

He goeth girt with cohorts, powers,
The monarch of his manful hours,
Whose mind's his throne:

He owes no homage to the sun:
There's nothing he need seek or shun:
All things are his by right:
He is his own posterity:
His future in himself doth lie:
His soul's his light:

Lord of a lofty life is he,
Loftily living, though he be
Of lowly birth; though poor,
He lacks not wealth: nor high degree
In state obscure.

The merely great are, all in all,

No more than what the merely small
Esteem them. Man's opinion

Neither conferred, nor can recall
This man's dominion.

Owen Meredith.

England my Mother

E

NGLAND my mother,

Wardress of waters,
Builder of peoples,

Maker of men,—

Hast thou yet leisure
Left for the muses?

Heed'st thou the songsmith
Forging the rhyme?

Deafened with tumults,
How canst thou hearken?
Strident is faction,

Demos is loud.

Lazarus, hungry,

Menaces Dives;

Labour the giant

Chafes in his hold.

Yet do the songsmiths
Quit not their forges:
Still on life's anvil

Forge they the rhyme.

So let the songsmith
Proffer his rhyme-gift,
England my mother,
Maker of men.

Grey grows thy count'nance

Full of the ages;

Time on thy forehead

Sits like a dream:

Song is the potion
All things renewing,

Youth's one elixir,

Fountain of morn.

Thou, at the world-loom

Weaving thy future,

Fitly may'st temper

Toil with delight.