University of Virginia Library

I

I sing not Death. Death is too great a thing
For me to dare to sing.
I chant the human goodness, human worth,
Which are not lost, but sweeten still the Earth;
The things that flee not with the upyielded breath,
But, housed in sanctuary of simple hearts,
Live undethroned when Death
Comes to the chamber of a mighty King,
And sheds abroad the silence of his wing,
Then shakes his raven plumage, and departs.

II

Honour the happy dead with sober praise,
Who living would have scorned the fulsome phrase,
Meet for the languorous Orient's jewelled ear.
This was the English King, that loved the English ways:
A man not too remote, or too august,
For other mortal children of the dust
To know and to draw near.
Born with a nature that demanded joy,
He took full draughts of life, nor did the vintage cloy;
But when she passed from vision, who so long
Had sat aloft—alone—
On the steep heights of an Imperial throne,
Then rose he large and strong,
Then spake his voice with new and grander tone,
Then, called to rule the State
Which he had only served,
He saw clear Duty plain, nor from that highway swerved,
And, unappalled by his majestic fate,
Pretended not to greatness, yet was great.

III

Sea-lover, and sea-rover, throned henceforth
Amid the paths and passes of the sea;
You that have sailed, out of our stormy North,
And have not sailed in vain,
To all the golden shores where now You reign,
Through every ocean gate whereof You keep the key:
O may your power and your dominion stand
Fixt on what things soever make Life fair,
And on what things soever make men free,
In duteous love of ordered liberty:
So shall your praise be blown from strand to strand.
Your Father lies among the Kings his kin,
Pillowed on yonder couch of silence, where
No wandering echo of the world's loud blare
Profanes the awesome air.
The age that bore us is entombèd there!
With You the younger time is eager to begin.
Let nations see, beneath your prospering hand,
An Empire mighty in arms, its fleets and hosts
Keeping far vigil round your hundred coasts—
An Empire mighty in arms, but therewithal
Nourished in mind, with noble thoughts made rich,
And panoplied in knowledge, lacking which
The proudest fortress is but feebly manned
And ever trembles to its thunderous fall.
And now to You—to Her who at your side
Henceforward shall divide
The all but dreadful glory of a crown—
Be honour and felicity and renown!
And may the inscrutable years,
That claim from every man their toll of tears,
Weave for your brows a wreath that shall not fade—
A chaplet and a crown divinely made
Out of your people's love, your people's trust;
For wanting these all else were but as dust
In that great balance wherein Kings are weighed.