DOI issue:
February 14, 1863
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16871#0072
Enthusiastic Nimrod. “There’s another thing too about Fox-hunting which I always think Delightful—you come upon such
Picturesque Nooks and Corners. Now, who would ever think of coming out here for a Mere WalkI "
HENRY, MARQUIS OE LANSDOWNE,
BORN JULY 2, 1780; DIED JANUARY SI, 1863.
Low lies the grey head that had borne so well
Its weight of years and honour, from far days
That seem as alien to our blame or praise,
As days whereof books only live to tell.
How one by one, Time’s tooth eats through the chain
Whose links unite our lives to that grey past!
A golden link was this, that parted last,
Leaving a void, not to be filled again.
He stepped into the senate, from the school
As great men’s sons did in his early day.
Putting the College exercise away,
To take the helm of empire and the rule.
He knew the great ones, that loom yet more great
To us through mists of time; he spoke the grief
Of England, o’er the tomb of her sea-chief.
Who crowned at Trafalgar his fame and fate.
He fought with Pitt, he served with Pox; he shared
The struggles of a fiercer time than ours.
When party severed chiefs and sundered powers
By gulfs, set thick with sharp hates, barbed and bared.
Thence passed he to the calmer times we know.
Calmer by dint of all that such as he
Have won, from victory to victory
Passing, with measured steps, secure and slow,
Leaving no fort half-ta’en, post half-secured:
Where’er they passed, turning old foes to friends;
So reachmg to still larger loftier ends.
That vantage ne’er was gained, but it endured.
He knew to sweeten strife, by gentle port.
Pair speech, kind judgment even of his foes,—
By tolerance, from trust in truth that flows,
By breeding, that nor asks nor payeth court.
By the wide teaching that makes rude men tame.
By letters and amenities of art,
Whose grace infiltrates to a nation’s heart,
And rounds the angles of a Country’s frame.
Such were the gracious influences brought
To bear by him and those with whom he stood;
Por love of all things noble, fair, and good.
Ran in his veins, and like an instinct wrought.
Not his the book-worm’s passion for dead books.
The connoisseur’s mole-eye that gathers light,
Groping in ways where common eyes find night.
But on God’s work-day world turns blankest looks.
Where he loved books he loved their writers too.
Prom the great art of bye-gone days he learned
To prize the living art, which he discerned.
In days when critic-cant denied its due.
Even in the heat of party-strife he kept
That gentler mood, which calm o’er conflict brings.
As oil o’er stormy waves spreads smoothing rings,
Till side by side old feuds and passions slept.
And when life’s evening came, ’twas girt about
With trust and reverence and troops of friends;
The young loved this old man, who on the ends
Of life and great affairs, yet sought them out.
And gave them kindly greeting, counsel, aid.
Yet not as one that stoops from high to low,
But as a friend ’mong friends he loved to know.
With whom we feel ashamed not, nor afraid.
And so passed slow and softly to its end,
Serene and summer-still, his long-drawn day.
While England mourns a Nestor past away.
How many, nigh and low, lament a friend I
Picturesque Nooks and Corners. Now, who would ever think of coming out here for a Mere WalkI "
HENRY, MARQUIS OE LANSDOWNE,
BORN JULY 2, 1780; DIED JANUARY SI, 1863.
Low lies the grey head that had borne so well
Its weight of years and honour, from far days
That seem as alien to our blame or praise,
As days whereof books only live to tell.
How one by one, Time’s tooth eats through the chain
Whose links unite our lives to that grey past!
A golden link was this, that parted last,
Leaving a void, not to be filled again.
He stepped into the senate, from the school
As great men’s sons did in his early day.
Putting the College exercise away,
To take the helm of empire and the rule.
He knew the great ones, that loom yet more great
To us through mists of time; he spoke the grief
Of England, o’er the tomb of her sea-chief.
Who crowned at Trafalgar his fame and fate.
He fought with Pitt, he served with Pox; he shared
The struggles of a fiercer time than ours.
When party severed chiefs and sundered powers
By gulfs, set thick with sharp hates, barbed and bared.
Thence passed he to the calmer times we know.
Calmer by dint of all that such as he
Have won, from victory to victory
Passing, with measured steps, secure and slow,
Leaving no fort half-ta’en, post half-secured:
Where’er they passed, turning old foes to friends;
So reachmg to still larger loftier ends.
That vantage ne’er was gained, but it endured.
He knew to sweeten strife, by gentle port.
Pair speech, kind judgment even of his foes,—
By tolerance, from trust in truth that flows,
By breeding, that nor asks nor payeth court.
By the wide teaching that makes rude men tame.
By letters and amenities of art,
Whose grace infiltrates to a nation’s heart,
And rounds the angles of a Country’s frame.
Such were the gracious influences brought
To bear by him and those with whom he stood;
Por love of all things noble, fair, and good.
Ran in his veins, and like an instinct wrought.
Not his the book-worm’s passion for dead books.
The connoisseur’s mole-eye that gathers light,
Groping in ways where common eyes find night.
But on God’s work-day world turns blankest looks.
Where he loved books he loved their writers too.
Prom the great art of bye-gone days he learned
To prize the living art, which he discerned.
In days when critic-cant denied its due.
Even in the heat of party-strife he kept
That gentler mood, which calm o’er conflict brings.
As oil o’er stormy waves spreads smoothing rings,
Till side by side old feuds and passions slept.
And when life’s evening came, ’twas girt about
With trust and reverence and troops of friends;
The young loved this old man, who on the ends
Of life and great affairs, yet sought them out.
And gave them kindly greeting, counsel, aid.
Yet not as one that stoops from high to low,
But as a friend ’mong friends he loved to know.
With whom we feel ashamed not, nor afraid.
And so passed slow and softly to its end,
Serene and summer-still, his long-drawn day.
While England mourns a Nestor past away.
How many, nigh and low, lament a friend I