Carlyle
Iconoclast , thou, too, art overthrown!
Death, merciless as thou, hath torn thee down
From that high place where thou didst sit and frown —
Mocking all human weakness save thine own.
A warrior thou, and yet thou didst not meet
Thy fate with lofty fortitude resigned;
But like a Parthian, direst in defeat,
A flight of poisoned arrows shot behind.
Fame tramples on thy name as thou didst tread
With iron heel upon the illustrious dead.
Ah, well for thee if thou hadst knelt and wept
In manly silence where thy brothers slept!
Thy tears had sweetened all thy bitter leaven,
And for forgiving, thou hadst been forgiven.
Who made thee judge? Hadst thou no weakness, too?
No kindred crumbling of our common clay,
That thou shouldst tear death's kindly veil away
And hold the meaner part of genius up to view?
They called thee Friend, and laid their bosoms bare —
Thou sawest only what what was poorest there;
The rich, the lofty and the sweet, thine eye
Marked not, or marking, passed them sneering by.
Thou hadst too little mercy to be just:
Unkind! at thy command behold them crawl —
Sad, shambling phantoms, shaped of hallowed dust!
Unwise! thy haggard figure heads them all.
Tormented by the vultures of disease,
An egotist of pain, thou sawest men
Through the dark medium of thine agonies;
And in thine own hot gall didst dip thy pen,
And Cowards, Fools and Knaves didst write them down
Life early looked upon thee with a frown,
And thou didst nurse the insult in thy brain,
Till, certain of thy strength, with fierce disdain,
Tenfold thou didst repay thyself again.
And thou wert strong! Magician of the spell
That raised the spectres of the headless dead,
Who rolled in blood beneath a nation's tread,
While Freedom wallowed in her crimson hell!
Ca ira! hark, the tramp of marching feet!
Hark to the tumbrels jolting through the street,
The clashing guillotine that never tires,
Till Terror, strangled with excess, expires!
Such strength was thine. Ah, had there been in thee
More of the gentleness thou didst despise;
Had Man seemed less unlovely in thine eyes,
Thy faults, the heirlooms of mortality,
His loving hands had buried with thy frame;
Sealing unblemished to posterity
The glory of a high and hallowed name.
Death, merciless as thou, hath torn thee down
From that high place where thou didst sit and frown —
Mocking all human weakness save thine own.
A warrior thou, and yet thou didst not meet
Thy fate with lofty fortitude resigned;
But like a Parthian, direst in defeat,
A flight of poisoned arrows shot behind.
Fame tramples on thy name as thou didst tread
With iron heel upon the illustrious dead.
Ah, well for thee if thou hadst knelt and wept
In manly silence where thy brothers slept!
Thy tears had sweetened all thy bitter leaven,
And for forgiving, thou hadst been forgiven.
Who made thee judge? Hadst thou no weakness, too?
No kindred crumbling of our common clay,
That thou shouldst tear death's kindly veil away
And hold the meaner part of genius up to view?
They called thee Friend, and laid their bosoms bare —
Thou sawest only what what was poorest there;
The rich, the lofty and the sweet, thine eye
Marked not, or marking, passed them sneering by.
Thou hadst too little mercy to be just:
Unkind! at thy command behold them crawl —
Sad, shambling phantoms, shaped of hallowed dust!
Unwise! thy haggard figure heads them all.
Tormented by the vultures of disease,
An egotist of pain, thou sawest men
Through the dark medium of thine agonies;
And in thine own hot gall didst dip thy pen,
And Cowards, Fools and Knaves didst write them down
Life early looked upon thee with a frown,
And thou didst nurse the insult in thy brain,
Till, certain of thy strength, with fierce disdain,
Tenfold thou didst repay thyself again.
And thou wert strong! Magician of the spell
That raised the spectres of the headless dead,
Who rolled in blood beneath a nation's tread,
While Freedom wallowed in her crimson hell!
Ca ira! hark, the tramp of marching feet!
Hark to the tumbrels jolting through the street,
The clashing guillotine that never tires,
Till Terror, strangled with excess, expires!
Such strength was thine. Ah, had there been in thee
More of the gentleness thou didst despise;
Had Man seemed less unlovely in thine eyes,
Thy faults, the heirlooms of mortality,
His loving hands had buried with thy frame;
Sealing unblemished to posterity
The glory of a high and hallowed name.
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