THE LAUREATE'S TRIBUTE
[The feeling of the English nation toward the Duke of Wellington was nobly expressed by Tennyson in his great "Ode," published in 1852, the year of the Duke's death.]
I
Bury the Great Duke
With an empire's lamentation;
Let us bury the Great Duke
To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation-
Mourning when their leaders fall,
Warriors carry the warrior's pall,
And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall.
II
Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?
Here in streaming London's central roar.
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for
Echo round his bones forevermore.
III
Lead out the pageant, sad and slow,
As fits a universal woe;
Let the long, long procession go,
And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow,
And let the mournful martial music blow;
The last great Englishman is low.
IV
Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
Remembering all his greatness in the past.
No more in soldier fashion will he greet
With lifted hand the gazer in the street.
O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute;
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crime;
Our greatest, yet with least pretense,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in saving common sense,
And as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.
O good gray head which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fall'n at length that tower of strength,
Which stood four-square to all the winds that
Such was he whom we deplore!
The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er,
The great world-victor's victor will be seen no more.