Posthumous Poems/Memorial Verses on the Death of Karl Blind
MEMORIAL VERSES ON THE DEATH
OF KARL BLIND
Across the wide-wing'd years Whose sound no hearkener hears Passing in thunder of reverberate flight, Nor any seer may see What fruit of them shall be, Shines from the death-struck past a living light, And music breathed of memory's breath Attunes the darkling silence born of earthly death.
Through all the thunderous time, Now silent and sublime, When Right in hopeless hope waged war on Wrong, His head shone high, his hand Grasped as a burning brand The sword of faith which weakness makes more strong, And they for whom it shines hold fast The trust that Time bequeaths for truth to assure at last.
Not prison, not the breath Of doom denouncing death,Could make the manhood in him burn less high For one breath's space than when It shone for following men,A sign to show how man might live or die With freedom in triumphant sight,And hope elate above all fluctuant chance of fight.
The German fame of old, By Roman hands inscrolledAs bright beyond all nations else borne down, Shone round his banished head, As round the deathless deadWith light bequeathed of one coequal crown: And now that his and theirs are oneNo time shall see the setting of that sovereign sun.
All this must all time know While memories ebb and flow Till out of blind forgetfulness is born Fame deathless as the day, When none may think to say Her light is less than noon and even and morn: When glories forged in hell-fire fade, And warrior empires wither in the waste they made.
When all a forger's fame Is shrivelled up in shame;When all imperial notes of praise and prayer And hoarse thanksgiving raised To the abject God they praisedFor murderous mercies are but poisonous air; When Bismarck and his William lieLow even as he they warred on—damned too deep to die.
For how should history bid Their names go free, lie hid, Stand scathless of her Tacitean brand? From them forgetfulness, Too bright a boon to bless Crime deep as hell, withholds her healing hand; But while their fame was fresh and rank The old light of German glory here nor sank nor shrank.
Here, where all wrongs find aid, Where all foul strengths are stayed,Where empire means not evil, here was one Whose glance, whose smile, whose voice Bade all their souls rejoiceWho hailed in sight of English sea and sun A head sublime as theirs who diedFor England ere her praise was Freedom's crowning pride.
Not even his head shone higher, Whose only loftiest lyreWere meet to hail faith pure and proud as his: A pride all praise must wrong Less high than soared the songWherein the light that was and was not is: The lyric light whence Milton litThe darkness of the darkling days that knew not it.
Less high my praise may soar: But when it lives no more Silent and fervent in the secret heart That holds for all time fast The sense of time long past, No sense of life will then therein have part. No thought may speak, no words enshrine, My thanks to him who gave Mazzini's hand to mine.
Our glorious century gone Beheld no head that shoneMore clear across the storm, above the foam, More steadfast in the fight Of warring night and light,True to the truth whose star leads heroes home, Than his who, loving all things free,Loved as with English passion of delight our sea.
The joy of glorious age To greet the sea's glad rage With answering rapture as of bird or boy, When sundawn thrilled the foam And bade the sea's flock home, Crowned all a foiled heroic life with joy Bright as the light of living flame, That glows, a deathless gloriole, round his deathless name.
1907.