 | Quo Musa Tendis? |  |
66
2. The Rt. Hon. H. C. Raikes.
No need upon your honoured tomb
The words de Mortuis to write:
For while we mourn your early doom,
Your merits strike on all men's sight.
The words de Mortuis to write:
For while we mourn your early doom,
Your merits strike on all men's sight.
The qualities you chanced to want,
How unimportant they appear:
Whatever fortune did not grant,
The greatest gift of all was there.
How unimportant they appear:
Whatever fortune did not grant,
The greatest gift of all was there.
You never deigned by any shift
Your share of daily toil to shirk:
You had the grand essential gift—
Capacity for honest work.
Your share of daily toil to shirk:
You had the grand essential gift—
Capacity for honest work.
By work you lived, by work you died,
And earned a name, if any can,
That's almost always misapplied,
An honest English Working Man.
And earned a name, if any can,
That's almost always misapplied,
An honest English Working Man.
And I, who dared in boyhood's day
To write, in later years to print,
A somewhat disrespectful lay,
—Though there was naught of malice in't—
To write, in later years to print,
A somewhat disrespectful lay,
—Though there was naught of malice in't—
67
Should like to say I'm not the last
To recognise your sterling worth:
Forgive my strictures of the past,
The overflow of harmless mirth;
To recognise your sterling worth:
Forgive my strictures of the past,
The overflow of harmless mirth;
For this at least is wholly true;
I should be more than satisfied
To work as well and hard as you,
To die in harness, as you died.
I should be more than satisfied
To work as well and hard as you,
To die in harness, as you died.
Sept. 1891.
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