 | English Roses |  |
BISMARCK.
Man of blood and man of iron
Gone to thy last dread account,
Whom one world could scarce environ;
All the measures that we know,
Heights above and deeps below,
Cannot mete thy full amount.
One of Nature's Facts and Forces
Whom no power but God could bend,
Thou didst lead on thunderous courses
Kings and kingdoms past the rocks,
Through the shadows and the shocks,
To their predetermined end.
Gone to thy last dread account,
Whom one world could scarce environ;
All the measures that we know,
Heights above and deeps below,
Cannot mete thy full amount.
One of Nature's Facts and Forces
Whom no power but God could bend,
Thou didst lead on thunderous courses
Kings and kingdoms past the rocks,
585
To their predetermined end.
Lord of destiny and action,
Thou didst make a people one,
Moulding for no passing faction
Senates to thy sovereign will;
And, despite the good or ill,
What thou wouldest that was done.
Nothing might withstand the shaping
Of that purpose, shame or shoal;
From thy wrath was no escaping,
Princes were thy pawns and fools,
Friends and enemies the tools
Working out a glorious goal.
Thou didst make a people one,
Moulding for no passing faction
Senates to thy sovereign will;
And, despite the good or ill,
What thou wouldest that was done.
Nothing might withstand the shaping
Of that purpose, shame or shoal;
From thy wrath was no escaping,
Princes were thy pawns and fools,
Friends and enemies the tools
Working out a glorious goal.
More than human, awful master
Of the tidal powers that purge
With the rod of red disaster
Empires as they rise or fall;
Passionless thyself in all,
Thou was throned a Demiurge.
Rulers on thee proudly leaning
Gathered something of that might,
And new majesty and meaning
In the grandeur of a state
Calm and pitiless as Fate—
Heedless of a wrong or right.
Of the tidal powers that purge
With the rod of red disaster
Empires as they rise or fall;
Passionless thyself in all,
Thou was throned a Demiurge.
Rulers on thee proudly leaning
Gathered something of that might,
And new majesty and meaning
In the grandeur of a state
Calm and pitiless as Fate—
Heedless of a wrong or right.
Churches were thy counters, nations
Formed the stones whereon was built
Germany for whose foundations
Mingled at thy magic spell
Fraud, religion, heaven and hell,
Banded in a common guilt.
Like some fair and fallen Creator
Unconsumed with death at heart,
Shalt thou live the legislator
Of a Kosmos glued by blood;
Sphered beyond the fire and flood,
Hated, blest, accurst, apart.
Formed the stones whereon was built
Germany for whose foundations
Mingled at thy magic spell
Fraud, religion, heaven and hell,
Banded in a common guilt.
Like some fair and fallen Creator
Unconsumed with death at heart,
Shalt thou live the legislator
Of a Kosmos glued by blood;
Sphered beyond the fire and flood,
Hated, blest, accurst, apart.
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