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!”
It is plain from the start that he is writing for a public. This great duke needs a capital G and a capital D to impress duly that public, the British (which is always ready to be awed by capitals attached to titles), with the great duke’s immensity. There is something of the heavy English undertaker about this—a display, a forced solemnity, a measured tread, a sense of sham. The great duke is lost sight of in the funereal trappings, the crowd, and accompaniment. See how Byron seizes on the very heart of an event, and in a few lines pictures for us the whole, the before and after. He is describing the greater man by whose fall the great duke rose to fame:
“Tis done—but yesterday a king!
And arm’d with kings to strive—
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject—yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones,