Demeter and other poems/To the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava
TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA.
I.
At times her steps are swift and rash;
She moving, at her girdle clash
The golden keys of East and West.
II.
The sceptres of her West, her East,
To one, that ruling has increased
Her greatness and her self-content.
III.
Their ruler. Your viceregal days
Have added fulness to the phrase
Of 'Gauntlet in the velvet glove.'
IV.
Not all, as honouring your fair fame
Of Statesman, have I made the name
A golden portal to my rhyme:
V.
From me and mine, how dear a debt
We owed you, and are owing yet
To you and yours, and still would owe.
VI.
And drew him over sea to you—
He fain had ranged her thro' and thro',
To serve her myriads and the State,—
VII.
And on thro' many a brightening year,
Had never swerved for craft or fear,
By one side-path, from simple truth;
VIII.
And caught her chaplet here—and there
In haunts of jungle-poison'd air
The flame of life went wavering down;
IX.
And lay on that funereal boat,
Dying, 'Unspeakable' he wrote
'Their kindness,' and he wrote no more;
X.
And now the Was[errata 1], the Might-have-been,
And those lone rites I have not seen,
And one drear sound I have not heard,
XI.
Not there to bid my boy farewell,
When That within the coffin fell
Fell and flash'd into the Red Sea,
XII.
And alien stars. To question, why
The sons before the fathers die,
Not mine! and I may meet him soon;
XIII.
Nor settles into hueless gray,
My memories of his briefer day
Will mix with love for you and yours.
Errata