5.
Many a year that priceless light of life has trembled, we remember,
On the platform of extinction—unextinct;
Many a month has been for him the long year’s last—life’s calm December:
Can it be that he who said so, saying so, winked?
6.
No: the lust of life, the thirst for work and days with work to do in,
Drove and drives him down the road of splendid shame;
All is well, if o’er the monument recording England’s ruin
Time shall read, inscribed in triumph, Gladstone’s name.