The Lady of La Garaye - Conclusion
PEACE to their ashes! Far away they lie,
Among their poor, beneath the equal sky.
Among their poor, who blessed them ere they went
For all the loving help and calm content.
Oh! happy beings, who have gone to hear
‘Well done, ye faithful servants,’ sounding clear;
How easy all your virtues to admire;
How hard, alas! to copy and aspire.
Servant of God, well done! They serve God well
Who serve His creatures: when the funeral bell
Tolls for the dead, there’s nothing left of all
That decks the scutcheon and the velvet pall
Save this. The coronet is empty show:
The strength and loveliness are hid below:
The shifting wealth to others hath accrued:
And learning cheers not the grave’ solitude:
What’s DONE, is what remains! Ah, blessed they
Who leave completed tasks of love to stay
And answer mutely for them, being dead,
Life was not purposeless, though Life be fled.
Even as I write, before me seem to rise,
Like stars in darkness, well remembered eyes
Whose light but lately shone on earth’s endeavour,
Now vanished from this troubled world for ever.
Oh! missed and mourned by many,—I being one,—
HERBERT, not vainly thy career was run;
Nor shall Death’s shadow, and the folding shroud,
Veil from the future years thy worth allowed.
Since all thy life thy single hope and aim
Was to do good,—not make thyself a name,—
'Tis fit that by the good remaining yet,
Thy name be one men never can forget.
Oh! eyes I first knew in our mutual youth.
So full of limpid earnestness and truth;
Eyes I saw fading still, as day by day
The body, not the spirit’s strength, gave way;
Eyes that I last saw lifting their farewell
To the now darkened windows where I dwell,—
And wondered, as I stood there sadly gazing,
If Death were brooding in their faint upraising;
If never more thy footstep light should cross
My threshold stone—but friends bewail thy loss,
And She bewidowed young, who lonely trains
Children that boast thy good blood in their veins;
Fair eyes,—your light was quenched while men still thought
To see those tasks to full perfection brought!
But GOOD is not a shapeless mass of stone,
Hewn by man’s hands and worked by him alone;
It is a seed God suffers One to sow,—
Many to reap; and when the harvests grow,
GOD giveth increase through all coming years,—
And lets us reap in joy, seed that was sown in tears.
Brave heart! true soldier’s son; set at thy post,
Deserting not till life itself was lost;
Thou faithful sentinel for others’ weal,
Clad in a surer panoply than steel,
A resolute purpose,—sleep, as heroes sleep,—
Slain, but not conquered! We thy loss must weep,
And while our sight the mist of sorrow dims,
Feel all these comforting words die down like hymns
Hushed after service in cathedral walls;
But proudly on thy name thy country calls,
By thee raised higher than the highest place
Yet won by any of thy ancient race.
Be thy sons like thee! Sadly as I bend
Above the page, I write thy name, lost friend!
With a friend’s name this brief book did begin,
And a friend’s name shall end it: names that win
Happy remembrance from the great and good;
Names that shall sink not in oblivion’s flood,
But with clear music, like a church-bell’s chime,
Sound through the river’s sweep of onward rushing Time!
