I. <br /> <br />Just for a handful of silver he left us, <br /> Just for a riband to stick in his coat--- <br />Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, <br /> Lost all the others she lets us devote; <br />They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, <br /> So much was theirs who so little allowed: <br />How all our copper had gone for his service! <br /> Rags---were they purple, his heart had been proud! <br />We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, <br /> Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, <br />Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, <br /> Made him our pattern to live and to die! <br />Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, <br /> Burns, Shelley, were with us,---they watch from their graves! <br />He alone breaks from the van and the free-men, <br /> ---He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! <br /> <br /> II. <br /> <br />We shall march prospering,---not thro' his presence; <br /> Songs may inspirit us,---not from his lyre; <br />Deeds will be done,---while he boasts his quiescence, <br /> Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: <br />Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, <br /> One task more declined, one more foot-path untrod, <br />One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, <br /> One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! <br />Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! <br /> There would be doubt, hesitation and pain, <br />Forced praise on our part---the glimmer of twilight, <br /> Never glad confident morning again! <br />Best fight on well, for we taught him---strike gallantly, <br /> Menace our heart ere we master his own; <br />Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, <br /> Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!<br /><br />Robert Browning<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lost-leader/
