Classic Poem

Seven years have fled since on thy honoured clay
I laid a fading wreath of grateful verse;
Willing, once more I come again to-day
Thy unforgotten virtues to rehearse;
Friend of the friendless else, thou art not dead
Whilst still one voice laments thy honoured head!

Nay, nay, rejoice! the time is past for tears
Now when our long-lost leader comes to stand
Pleading once more for England 'midst his peers,
Pure as the marble from the sculptor's hand,—
Not grief be ours, but joy that he has come,
Who being dead yet speaketh, to his home.

Here 'mid the lengthening pageant of the Great
Still let him stand, speechless yet eloquent,
Taking the eager air of high debate,
And echoes of our freeman's Parliament;
Here let him plead as erst impassioned, strong
In love of Right, and scorn and hate of Wrong.

Ah! well that he is come! the peoples groan;
Torture and murder vex them day by day.
Would he were living still to hear their moan
And fright the accursed spoiler from his prey!
Yet though that voice warlike for peace is gone,
Pray Heaven its accents still go widening on!

Here from his silent lips be wafted far
A gracious message over land and sea,
Deep horror of the fratricide of War,
High aspirations for the Peace to be,
As when long years ago his eloquent word,
Though spent in vain, the listening Senate stirred.

Here let him plead again the toiler's cause,
The burden of the oppressed, the weak, the slave,
Crushed to the earth by old abusive laws;
The voice of freedom dies not with the grave;
Mute though they seem, those lips so cold and white
Shall glow with burning utterance for the right.

Stand here, great Englishman! Earth knows to-day
No prouder title than that world-wide name;
Though thrones and rank and honours pass away,
There comes no cloud that shall obscure thy fame.
Here in the precincts where thy years were spent
Inspire, sustain thy well-loved Parliament!