| |
| A FLYING word from here and there | |
| Had sown the name at which we sneered, | |
| But soon the name was everywhere, | |
| To be reviled and then revered: | |
| A presence to be loved and feared, | 5 |
| We cannot hide it, or deny | |
| That we, the gentlemen who jeered, | |
| May be forgotten by and by. | |
| |
| He came when days were perilous | |
| And hearts of men were sore beguiled; | 10 |
| And having made his note of us, | |
| He pondered and was reconciled. | |
| Was ever master yet so mild | |
| As he, and so untamable? | |
| We doubted, even when he smiled, | 15 |
| Not knowing what he knew so well. | |
| |
| He knew that undeceiving fate | |
| Would shame us whom he served unsought; | |
| He knew that he must wince and wait— | |
| The jest of those for whom he fought; | 20 |
| He knew devoutly what he thought | |
| Of us and of our ridicule; | |
| He knew that we must all be taught | |
| Like little children in a school. | |
| |
| We gave a glamour to the task | 25 |
| That he encountered and saw through, | |
| But little of us did he ask, | |
| And little did we ever do. | |
| And what appears if we review | |
| The season when we railed and chaffed? | 30 |
| It is the face of one who knew | |
| That we were learning while we laughed. | |
| |
| The face that in our vision feels | |
| Again the venom that we flung, | |
| Transfigured to the world reveals | 35 |
| The vigilance to which we clung. | |
| Shrewd, hallowed, harassed, and among | |
| The mysteries that are untold, | |
| The face we see was never young, | |
| Nor could it ever have been old. | 40 |
| |
| For he, to whom we have applied | |
| Our shopman’s test of age and worth, | |
| Was elemental when he died, | |
| As he was ancient at his birth: | |
| The saddest among kings of earth, | 45 |
| Bowed with a galling crown, this man | |
| Met rancor with a cryptic mirth, | |
| Laconic—and Olympian. | |
| |
| The love, the grandeur, and the fame | |
| Are bounded by the world alone; | 50 |
| The calm, the smouldering, and the flame | |
| Of awful patience were his own: | |
| With him they are forever flown | |
| Past all our fond self-shadowings, | |
| Wherewith we cumber the Unknown | 55 |
| As with inept Icarian wings. | |
| |
| For we were not as other men: | |
| ’T was ours to soar and his to see. | |
| But we are coming down again, | |
| And we shall come down pleasantly; | 60 |
| Nor shall we longer disagree | |
| On what it is to be sublime, | |
| But flourish in our perigee | |
| And have one Titan at a time. | |
| |
