Alas, great Chief!  The pity of it!—­For he
Lay on his unlamented bier; his life
Wreck’d on that futile strife
To wed things alien by heaven’s decree,
Sword-sway with liberty:—­
Coercing, not protecting;—­for the Cause
Smiting with iron heel on England’s laws: 
—­Intolerant tolerance!  Soul that could not trust
Its finer instincts; self-compell’d to run
The blood-path once begun,
And murder mercy with a sad ‘I must!’
Great lion-heart by guile and coarseness marr’d;
By his own heat a hero warp’d and scarr’d.

Despot despite himself!—­And when the cry
Moan’d up from England, dungeon’d in that drear
Sectarian atmosphere,
With glory he gilt her chains; in Spanish sky
Flaunting the Red Cross high;—­
Wars, just or unjust, ill or well design’d,
Urged with the will that masters weak mankind. 
—­God’s hammer Thou!—­not hero!—­Forged to break
The land,—­salve wounds with wounds, heal force by force;
Sword-surgeon keen and coarse:—­
To all who worship power for power’s own sake,—­
Strength for itself,—­Success, the vulgar test,—­
Fit idol of bent knee, and servile breast!

—­O in the party plaudits of the crowd
Glorious, if this be glory!—­o’er that shout
A small still voice breathes out
With subtle sweetness silencing the loud
Hoarse vaunting of the proud,—­
A song of exaltation for the vale,
And how the mountain from his height shall fail! 
How God’s true heroes, since this earth began,
Go sackcloth-clad through scourge and sword and scorn,
Crown’d with the bleeding thorn,
Down-trampled by man’s heel as foes to man,
And whispering Eli, Eli! as they die,—­
Martyrs of truth and Saint Humility.

These conquer in their fall:  Persuasion flies
Wing’d, from their grave:  The hearts of men are turn’d
To worship what they burn’d: 
Owning the sway of Love’s long-suffering eyes,
Love’s sweet self-sacrifice;
The might of gentleness; the subduing force
Of wisdom on her mid-way measured course
Gliding;—­not torrent-like with fury spilt,
Impetuous, o’er Himalah’s rifted side,
To ravage blind and wide,
And leave a lifeless wreck of parching silt;—­
Gliding by thorpe and tower and grange and lea
In tranquil transit to the eternal sea.

—­Children of Light!—­If, in the slow-paced course
Of vital change, your work seem incomplete,
Your conquest-hour defeat,
Won by mild compromise, by the invisible force
That owns no earthly source;
Yet to all time your gifts to man endure,
God being with you, and the victory sure! 
For though o’er Gods the Giants in the course
May lord it, Strength o’er Beauty; yet the Soul
Immortal, clasps the goal;
Fair Wisdom triumphs by her inborn force: 
—­Thus far on earth! . . .  But, ah!—­from mortal sight
The crowning glory veils itself in light!