Charles George Gordon.

"Rather be dead than praised," he said,
That hero, like a hero dead,
In this slack-sinewed age endued
With more than antique fortitude!

"Rather be dead than praised!" Shall we,
Who loved thee, now that Death sets free
Thine eager soul, with word and line
Profane that empty house of thine?

Nay,--let us hold, be mute. Our pain
Will not be less that we refrain;
And this our silence shall but be
A larger monument to thee.

Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson, commonly known as Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. A civil servant by profession, Dobson was one of the most renowned poets and literary critics of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. His work is noted for its delicate craftsmanship and profound interest in 18th-century literature. Dobson's poetry often revisited and celebrated historical themes and characters, blending scholarly interest with lyrical form.

Henry Austin Dobson

Little Blue-Ribbons.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

Tu Quoque, An Idyll In The Conservatory

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

To His Book.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

A Song To The Lute.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

English

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Shall The Dead Praise Thee?

I cannot praise thee. By his instrument
    The master sits, and moves nor foot nor hand;
For see the organ-pipes this, that way bent,
    Leaning, o'erthrown, like wheat-stalks tempest-fanned!

I well could praise thee for a flower, a dove,
    But not for life that is not life in me;
Not for a being that is less than love--
    A barren shoal half lifted from a sea!

Unto a land where no wind bloweth ships
    Thy wind one day will blow me to my own:
Rather I'd kiss no more their loving lips
    Than carry them a heart so poor and prone!

I bless thee, Father, thou art what thou art,
    That thou dost know thyself what thou dost know--
A perfect, simple, tender, rhythmic heart,
    Beating its blood to all in bounteous flow.

And I can b...

George MacDonald

In Memoriam. - A. L. Gordon.

At rest! Hard by the margin of that sea
Whose sounds are mingled with his noble verse,
Now lies the shell that never more will house
The fine, strong spirit of my gifted friend.
Yea, he who flashed upon us suddenly,
A shining soul with syllables of fire,
Who sang the first great songs these lands can claim
To be their own; the one who did not seem
To know what royal place awaited him
Within the Temple of the Beautiful,
Has passed away; and we who knew him, sit
Aghast in darkness, dumb with that great grief,
Whose stature yet we cannot comprehend;
While over yonder churchyard, hearsed with pines,
The night-wind sings its immemorial hymn,
And sobs above a newly-covered grave.
The bard, the scholar, and the man who lived
That frank, that open-hearted life wh...

Henry Kendall

Colin.

Who'll dive for the dead men now,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll feel for the anguished brow,
Since Colin is gone?
True Feeling is not confined
To the learned or lordly mind;
Nor can it be bought and sold
In exchange for an Alp of gold;
For Nature, that never lies,
Flings back with indignant scorn
The counterfeit deed, still-born,
In the face of the seeming wise,
In the Janus face of the huckster race
Who barter her truths for lies.

Who'll wrestle with dangers dire,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll fearlessly brave the maniac wave,
Thoughtless of self, human life to save,
Unmoved by the storm-fiend's ire?
Who, Shadrach-like, will walk through fire,
Since Colin is gone?
Or hang his life on so frail a breath
That there's but a step 't...

Charles Sangster

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Emigravit, October Vi., Mdcccxcii.


Grief there will be, and may,
When King Apollo's bay
Is cut midwise;
Grief that a song is stilled,
Grief for the unfulfilled
Singer that dies.

Not so we mourn thee now,
Not so we grieve that thou,
MASTER, art passed,
Since thou thy song didst raise,
Through the full round of days,
E'en to the last.

Grief there may be, and will,
When that the Singer still
Sinks in the song;
When that the wingéd rhyme
Fails of the promised prime,
Ruined and wrong.

Not thus we mourn thee--we--
Not thus we grieve for thee,
MASTER and Friend;
Since, like a clearing flame,
Clearer thy pure song came
E'en to the end.

Nay--nor for thee we grieve
E'en as for those th...

Henry Austin Dobson

In Memoriam - Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse

Shall he, on whom the fair lord, Delphicus,
Turned gracious eyes and countenance of shine,
Be left to lie without a wreath from us,
To sleep without a flower upon his shrine?

Shall he, the son of that resplendent Muse,
Who gleams, high priestess of sweet scholarship,
Still slumber on, and every bard refuse
To touch a harp or move a tuneful lip?

No! let us speak, though feeble be our speech,
And let us sing, though faltering be our strain,
And haply echoes of the song may reach
And please the soul we cannot see again.

We sing the beautiful, the radiant life
That shone amongst us like the quiet moon,
A fine exception in this sphere of strife,
Whose time went by us like a hallowed tune.

Yon tomb, whereon the moonlit grasses sigh,
Hide...

Henry Kendall

A Hero of the Revolution.

Let not a tear be shed!
    Of grief give not a token,
Although the silver thread
    And golden bowl be broken!
A warrior lived--a Christian died!
Sorrow's forgotten in our pride!

Go, bring his battle-blade,
    His helmet and his plume!
And be his trophies laid
    Beside him in the tomb,
Where files of time-marked veterans come
With martial tramp and muffled drum!

Give to the earth his frame,
    To moulder and decay;
But not his deathless name--
    That can not pass away!
In youth, in manhood, and in age,
He dignified his country's page!

Green be the willow-bough
    Above the swelling mound,
Where sleeps the hero now
    In consecrated ground:
Thy epitaph, O Delavan!
God's noblest work--an honest man!

George Pope Morris