But in mirth that strong heart rested
From its strife with the false and violent,—
A jester!—So Henry jested,
So jested William the Silent.
Orange, shocking the dull
With careless conceit and quip,
Yet holding the dumb heart full
With Holland's life on his lip![D]
Navarre, bonhomme and pleasant,
Pitying the poor man's lot,
Wishing that every peasant
A chicken had in his pot;
Feeding the stubborn bourgeois,
Though Paris still held out;
Holding the League in awe,
But jolly with all about.
Out of an o'erflowed fulness
Those deep hearts seemed too light,—
(And so 'twas, murder's dulness
Was set with sullener spite.)
Yet whoso might pierce the guise
Of mirth in the man we mourn
Would mark, and with grieved surprise,
All the great soul had borne,
In the piteous lines, and the kind, sad eyes
So dreadfully wearied and worn.
And we trusted (the last dread page
Once turned of our Doomsday Scroll)
To have seen him, sunny of soul,
In a cheery, grand old age.
But, Father, 'tis well with thee!
And since ever, when God draws nigh,
Some grief for the good must be,
'Twas well, even so to die,—
'Mid the thunder of Treason's fall,
The yielding of haughty town,
The crashing of cruel wall,
The trembling of tyrant crown!
The ringing of hearth and pavement
To the clash of falling chains,—
The centuries of enslavement
Dead, with their blood-bought gains!