But if one, with merciful eyes, From the forgiving skies Looks, 'mid our gloom, to see Yonder where Murder lies, Stripped of the woman guise, And waiting the doom,--'tis he. Kindly Spirit!--Ah, when did treason Bid such a generous nature cease, Mild by temper and strong by reason, But ever leaning to love and peace? A head how sober! a heart how spacious! A manner equal with high or low; Rough, but gentle; uncouth, but gracious; And still inclining to lips of woe. Patient when saddest, calm when sternest, Grieved when rigid for justice' sake; Given to jest, yet ever in earnest, If aught of right or truth were at stake. Simple of heart, yet shrewd therewith; Slow to resolve, but firm to hold; Still with parable and with myth Seasoning truth, like Them of old; Aptest humor and quaintest pith! (Still we smile o'er the tales he told.) And if, sometimes, in saddest stress, That mind, over-meshed by fate, (Ringed round with treason and hate, And guiding the State by guess,) Could doubt and could hesitate,-- Who, alas! had done less In the world's most deadly strait? But how true to the Common Cause! Of his task how unweary! How hard he worked, how good he was, How kindly and cheery! How, while it marked redouble The howls and hisses and sneers, That great heart bore our trouble Through all these terrible years,-- And, cooling passion with state, And ever counting the cost, Kept the Twin World-Robbers in wait Till the time for their clutch was lost! How much he cared for the State, How little for praise or pelf! A man too simply great To scheme for his proper self. But in mirth that strong heart rested From its strife with the false and violent,-- A jester!--So Henry jested, So jested William the Silent. Orange, shocking the dull With careless conceit and quip, Yet holding the dumb heart full With Holland's life on his lip![D] Navarre, bonhomme and pleasant, Pitying the poor man's lot, Wishing that every peasant A chicken had in his pot; Feeding the stubborn bourgeois, Though Paris still held out; Holding the League in awe, But jolly with all about. Out of an o'erflowed fulness Those deep hearts seemed too light,-- (And so 'twas, murder's dulness Was set with sullener spite.) Yet whoso might pierce the guise Of mirth in the man we mourn Would mark, and with grieved surprise, All the great soul had borne, In the piteous lines, and the kind, sad eyes So dreadfully wearied and worn. And we trusted (the last dread page Once turned of our Doomsday Scroll) To have seen him, sunny of soul, In a cheery, grand old age.