The Men Who Loved The Cause That Never Dies

O come you down from the far hills
Whereon you fought, triumphed and died,
Men at whose names the quick blood thrills
And the heart's troubled in our side.

Your shadows o'er our fields ere night
Draw from the shadow of old trees;
Ghost-hallowed run the streams, and light
Hangs halo-wise in the great peace.

Warriors of England whom we praise
(Ah, vain all praise!), your spirit is not
Lost in the meanness of these days,
Not wholly is your charge forgot.

And this perplexity of strife
Not all estrangèd leaves our heart;
England is ours yet, and her life
Has yet in ours the purest part.

But come you down and stand you yet
A little closer to our side,
Or in the darkness we forget
The cause for which Earth's noblest died.

John Frederick Freeman

John Frederick Freeman was a British poet, notable as a Georgian poet. He was born in London and worked initially as an office boy and later as a clerk before gaining recognition for his poetic works. Freeman primarily wrote about nature, identity, and the human condition. Over the course of his literary career, he published several books of poetry, and his works were praised for their sincerity and technical excellence. His notable collections include 'Presage of Victory' and 'Stone Trees.'

John Frederick Freeman

Change

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John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

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A King once said of a Prince struck down,
"Taller he seems in death."
And this speech holds truth, for now as then
'Tis after death that we measure men,
And as mists of the past are rolled away
Our heroes, who died in their tattered grey,
Grow "taller" and greater in all their parts
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A Nation respects them. The East and West,
The far-off slope of the Golden Coast,
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Presage Of Victory

I


Then first I knew, seeing that bent grey head,
How England honours all her thousand dead.
Then first I knew how faith through black grief burns,
Until the ruined heart glows while it yearns
For one that never more returns--
Glows in the spent embers of its pride
For one that careless lived and fearless died.
And then I knew, then first,
How everywhere Hope from her prison had burst--
On every hill, wide dale, soft valley's lap,
In lonely cottage clutch'd between huge downs,
And streets confused with streets in clanging towns--
Like spring from winter's jail pouring her sap
Into the idle wood of last year's trees.
Then first I knew how the vast world-disease
Would die away, and England upon her seas
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All For The Cause

Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh,
When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some to die!

He that dies shall not die lonely, many an one hath gone before;
He that lives shall bear no burden heavier than the life they bore.

Nothing ancient is their story, e'en but yesterday they bled,
Youngest they of earth's beloved, last of all the valiant dead.

E'en the tidings we are telling was the tale they had to tell,
E'en the hope that our hearts cherish, was the hope for which they fell.

In the grave where tyrants thrust them, lies their labour and their pain,
But undying from their sorrow springeth up the hope again.

Mourn not therefore, nor lament it, that the world outlives their life;
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Stonewall Jackson's Grave.[A]

A simple, sodded mound of earth,
    Without a line above it;
With only daily votive flowers
    To prove that any love it:
The token flag that silently
    Each breeze's visit numbers,
Alone keeps martial ward above
    The hero's dreamless slumbers.

No name? - no record? Ask the world;
    The world has read his story -
If all its annals can unfold
    A prouder tale of glory: -
If ever merely human life
    Hath taught diviner moral, -
If ever round a worthier brow
    Was twined a purer laurel!

A twelvemonth only, since his sword
    Went flashing through the battle -
A twelvemonth only, since his ear
    Heard war's last deadly rattle -
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Paul Jones

        A century of silent suns
            Have set since he was laid on sleep,
        And now they bear with booming guns
            And streaming banners o'er the deep
        A withered skin and clammy hair
            Upon a frame of human bones:
        Whose corse?    We neither know nor care,
            Content to name it John Paul Jones.

        His dust were as another's dust;
            His bones--what boots it where they lie?
        What matter where his sword is rust,
            Or where, now dark, his eagle eye?
        No foe need fear his arm again,
            Nor love, nor praise can make him whole;
        But o'er the farthest sons of men
            Will brood the glory of his soul.

        Careless though cenotaph or to...

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Were I that wandering citizen whose city is the world,
I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled;
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How God grew weary of the kings, and the cold hell in the north.
But we whose hearts are homing birds have heavier thoughts of home,
Though the great eagles burn with gold on Paris or on Rome,
Who stand beside our dead and stare, like seers at an eclipse,
At the riddle of the island tale and the twilight of the ships.

For these were simple men that loved with hands and feet and eyes,
Whose souls were humbled to the hills and narrowed to the skies,
The hundred little lands within one little land that lie,
Where Severn seeks the sunset isles or Sussex scales the sky.

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