Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/147

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JOHN MITCHEL.
135

JOHN MITCHEL.


DIED MARCH 20, 1875.


I.


DEAD, with his harness on him:
Rigid and cold and white,
Marking the place of the vanguard
Still in the ancient fight.

The climber dead on the hill-side,
Before the height is won:
The workman dead on the building.
Before the work is done!

O, for a tongue to utter
The words that should be said—
Of his worth that was silver, living,
That is gold and jasper, dead!