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, | |
Laconicand 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: | |
'Twas 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. | |