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 OF WELLINGTON
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Sonnets on t\t gtatj) 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
 
 ©ambrtDgc: 
 ^rinteti bp J^ttcaUe anB ^almev 
 
 FOR MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 IContlOn: GEORGE BELL. 
 
 JBttblin: hodges and smith. 
 lEDinburgb: edmonston & douglas. 
 C&Iasgoto: james maclehose. 
 
 ©iforU: J. H. PARKER.
 
 7~^ 
 
 m\\i\$ n t|e 5tat| 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON, 
 
 / 
 
 By SEBASTIAN EVANS. 
 
 S/.it(>pa \xtv Tiic, dW hjxwq 
 
 Soph. Elect. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND Co. 
 
 1852
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGD 
 
 EN
 
 ^b f I 
 
 Weep ye, and mourn ! our last great man is gone ! 
 Gone from the camp and council! — nevermore 
 Dwelleth with men the man we loved of yore! 
 Go softly! brothers, are we not alone, 
 
 Walking a night all rayless ? — he that shone 
 The lodestar of our England, and before 
 Our faltering feet shed holy light and lore, 
 Hath fled our skies, and left his sphere to none! 
 
 Weep ye and mourn, palace, and hall, and cot ! 
 Did he not live among us as a part 
 Of hearth and home, and his familiar fame 
 
 Fill all the rushing pulses of the heart 
 With pride that we too bore a Briton's name? 
 — O claim no kindred, ye who mourn him not ! 
 
 inor?nn'
 
 SONNETS ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 11. 
 
 Is grief, then, selfish all? and that dear head 
 But mourned for our own loss? he walketh now 
 Among his brethren of old time, his brow 
 Shaded with other laurels, never red, — 
 
 Soul unto soul conversing, as they tread 
 The crystal floor of heaven, or kneel to bow 
 Before the eternal Mercy-seat. — Ah, how 
 Shall the frail Living dare lament the Dead? 
 
 Peace ! will ye mar the holiness of grief? 
 Still let him rest beneath his quiet pall! 
 Yet know ye not how He who died for all, 
 
 True God, yet clad in true Humanity, 
 Even though He knew the lost one's slumber brief, 
 Wept over him He loved in Bethany ?
 
 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 III. 
 
 What boots it now in feeble phrase and new 
 The deeds, the wars we felt not, to record'? 
 Far worthier hands have twined around his sword 
 The leaves that die not ; — whether in red dew 
 
 He planted Orient greatness ; or o'erthrew 
 On many a Spanish height and crimsoned ford 
 The legioned vassals of the Lie abhorred ; 
 Or pierced its hideous bulk on Waterloo. 
 
 Our life is new. The chords are faint we smite 
 From Elder Time. That Empire of Unright, 
 The spawn of anarchy and godless years, 
 
 Hatched in the refuse of an ebbing faith, 
 Hath done its destined work, and died its death. 
 Bequeathing other hopes and other fears.
 
 8 SONNETS ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 IV. 
 
 To us, methinks, those deeds long passed away, 
 Show like the banks of cloud at eventide, 
 Those shadowy towers and towns, whose purple pride, 
 'Mid seas of amber, looms in long array 
 
 Above the sunset of a troubled day, 
 Telling of storms o'erpast, that far and wide 
 Shook hail and levin from their wings, and hied 
 Athwart the noon with darkness and dismay. — 
 
 Our fathers bore the tempest: — we, who seem 
 Children of evening, watch the tranquil skies. 
 Our sire's experience sounds but as a dream 
 
 Of things and deeds we cannot understand: 
 Yet, though we mark it not, even now may rise 
 That other cloud, no bigger than a hand.
 
 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 9 
 
 And who shall brave that tempest "? Must we say 
 The last great man hath perished, — that the land 
 Is shorn of all her strength ? — O friends, we stand 
 Even now girt round with feller foes than they 
 
 Our hero quelled, — men clamorous for sway, 
 Yet slaves of gold and lust, a loathly band, 
 Bred in the rottenness of states. — A hand 
 Higher even than his, is wanted here this day. — 
 
 Freedom and People, holy words, and dear! 
 How have they dared to desecrate your name. 
 Blind leaders of a blinder multitude, 
 
 Seeking your altars in the fanes of Shame! — 
 Prate ye of pure democracy? — 'Tis here, 
 Here in a noble life, and self subdued!
 
 10 SONNETS ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 VI. 
 
 Yet walk we not all hopeless : — and the dream 
 That haunts the troubled slumber of the State, 
 Of prosperous peace, and golden years that wait 
 Even at the portal, yearning now to teem 
 
 A race of monarchs in the land, may seem 
 No idle vision, — though the Good and Great 
 Be not the children of our Wealth, nor date 
 Their glory from the Lightning and the Steam. 
 
 Are these thy gods, O England 1 — Dost thou hope 
 To teach true manhood by mechanic lore"? 
 — By yon electric links from shore to shore ? 
 
 — Yon powers that pant along the clanking groove 1 
 — I ween our destined kings are they who cope 
 Boldly with duty, — strong in faith and love.
 
 THE DUKE or WELLINGTON. 11 
 
 VII. 
 
 Such was the man we mourn, whose noble soul 
 Was lord alike of Kaiser and of clown, 
 Above the smiles of Fortune, or her frown, 
 Controlling others by his own control. 
 
 Long shall the years record it as they roll, 
 The brighter centre of a bright renown, — 
 That, lordlier far than they who wore the crown, 
 He served his king, and kept his duty whole. 
 
 O ye, who praise the knighthood of the past, 
 Lo here the sole true chivalry ! And ye 
 Who on the phantoms of the future cast 
 
 Your gaze, and prophesy smooth things, turn thence. 
 And learn of him the secret of the free, 
 Whose freedom dwells in true obedience !
 
 12 SONNETS ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 VIIL 
 
 A THOUSAND fell beside him, and the sod 
 Lay heaped with corses round his single life ; 
 Yet scathless still, as fearless, 'mid the strife, 
 Where deaths in myriads darkened noon, he trod. 
 
 Ay, and when nations waited on his nod. 
 And girt his path with perilous greatness, — rife 
 With traitor's bullet, and assassin's knife, 
 No harm came nigh the favoured of his God. — 
 
 O proof of love and mercy! Who shall dare 
 Say yet our faith is dead, our glory told 1 
 Is there not hope for England, when her prayer 
 
 Could set his foot upon the foeman's neck, 
 Even as the wand that Moses raised of old, 
 When righteous Joshua fought with Amalek ?
 
 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 13 
 
 IX. 
 
 He died among his kindred, on his bed : 
 Prince, warrior, statesman. Shall I chant his praise"? 
 Alas, the labours of a thousand lays 
 Were weak beside the loving voice that said 
 
 O'er the cold clay, " Our good old Duke is dead !" 
 Our GOOD old Duke ! How coronets and bays 
 Pale at that inborn worth, whose gentle blaze 
 Sat like a glory on his calm grey head ! 
 
 Here dwelt the man's true greatness. — Pause awhile 
 On that old moral of the schoolboy's theme, 
 Of Fame, and things that are not as they seem : — 
 
 AVhat, will ye rank with him who lies beneath, 
 Yon Conqueror, captive on a narrow isle, 
 Babbling of Empire in the grasp of Death?
 
 u 
 
 SONNETS ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 X. 
 
 Go ! bear him forth, the generous and the just, 
 With all the symboled artifice of woe, 
 With car and pageant, pomp and blazoned show! 
 These are no common gauds of dust to dust ; 
 
 'Tis a whole glorious ^on that ye trust 
 To the grey Past with him who lieth low ! 
 This day with chant, and funeral march we go 
 From out the Old. Beneath our hero's bust, 
 
 We stand upon the threshold of the New! 
 Even now the portals open, and the dim 
 Aisles echo as we tread; — the seers are pale 
 
 With a strange awe, hushing their choral hymn 
 To whisper, gazing on the unlifted veil, 
 " Brothers, is this the temple of the True "?"
 
 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 15 
 
 XI. 
 
 They come ! with brazen dirges o'er the dead, 
 With thundery rolling of the muffled drum, 
 With tramp, and clash, and clattering hoofs, they come. 
 Through cloven seas like Israel: — but their tread 
 
 Is as the tread of triumph ; — they have shed 
 Their natural tears ere nov^^, and grief is dumb ; 
 Nor mingles mourning with the reverent hum 
 Of yon thick millions for their Hero fled. 
 
 The pomp is past^ — soldier, and sage, and peer, 
 Herald and prince, with staff, and cross, and star. 
 And sword, and golden symbol, — marching slow 
 
 Beneath their banners: — and the trophied car 
 Bears on the unheeding Victor. Ye may hear 
 Afar the drum beat, and the trumpet blow.
 
 16 
 
 SONMETS ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 XIL 
 
 Sadly and slowly let the pageant sweep 
 Along the dim cathedral ;. humbly there 
 Let herald's voice his earthly name declare, 
 And the low dirge its solemn pauses keep; 
 
 Lay him beside his brother of the Deep, 
 The greatest with the greatest, while the prayer 
 Falls calm and sweet upon the troubled air, 
 With words of hope, — they perish not, but sleep. — 
 
 There let the warrior rest, the good fight fought, 
 Where the great City bows her stubborn knees 
 Before our God. That dust beneath her feet 
 
 Shall quicken faith, and lift her dullard thought, 
 Through human change and chances, to the seat 
 Of Him who gives the triumph and the peace. 
 
 METCALFE AND PALMEIl, PRINTERS, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
 
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