The Poems of William Watson by William Watson
page 52 of 209 (24%)
page 52 of 209 (24%)
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Denied the happy garland of success,
Foil'd by dark fate, but glorious none the less, Greatest of losers, on the lone peak slain Of Alp-like virtue. Not to-day, and not To-morrow, shall thy spirit's splendour be Oblivion's victim; but when God shall find All human grandeur among men forgot, Then only shall the world, grown old and blind, Cease, in her dotage, to remember Thee. V GORDON _(concluded)_ Arab, Egyptian, English--by the sword Cloven, or pierced with spears, or bullet-mown-- In equal fate they sleep: their dust is grown A portion of the fiery sands abhorred. And thou, what hast thou, hero, for reward, Thou, England's glory and her shame? O'erthrown Thou liest, unburied, or with grave unknown As his to whom on Nebo's height the Lord Showed all the land of Gilead, unto Dan; Judah sea-fringed; Manasseh and Ephraim; And Jericho palmy, to where Zoar lay; And in a valley of Moab buried him, Over against Beth-Peor, but no man Knows of his sepulchre unto this day. |
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