Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Died lyrics
[Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Died lyrics]
What shall we add now? He is dead
And I who praise and you who blame
With wash of words across his name
Find suddenly declared instead -
"On Sunday, third of August, dead'
Which stops the whole we talked to day
I quickened to a plausive glance
At his large general tolerance
By common people's narrow way
Stopped short in praising dead, they say
And you, who had just put in a sort
Of cold deduction -"rather, large
Through weakness of the continent marge
Than greatness of the thing contained' -
Broke off dead! -there, you stood restrained
As if we had talked in following one
Up some long gallery "Would you choose
An air like that? The gait is loose -
Or noble' Sudden in the sun
An oubliette winks where is he? Gone
Dead man's "I was' by God's "I am' -
All hero-worship comes to that
High heart, high thought, high fame, as flat
As a gravestone bring your Jacet jam -
The epitaph's an epigram
Dead there's an answer to arrest
All carping dust's his natural place?
He'll let the flies buzz round his face
And, though you slander, not protest?
-From such an one, exact the Best?
Opinions gold or brass are null
We chuck our flattery or abuse
Called Caesar's due, as Charon's dues
I' the teeth of some dead sage or fool
To mend the grinning of a skull
Be abstinent in praise and blame
The man's still mortal, who stands first
And mortal only, if last and worst
Then slowly lift so frail a fame
Or softly drop so poor a shame
And I who praise and you who blame
With wash of words across his name
Find suddenly declared instead -
"On Sunday, third of August, dead'
Which stops the whole we talked to day
I quickened to a plausive glance
At his large general tolerance
By common people's narrow way
Stopped short in praising dead, they say
And you, who had just put in a sort
Of cold deduction -"rather, large
Through weakness of the continent marge
Than greatness of the thing contained' -
Broke off dead! -there, you stood restrained
As if we had talked in following one
Up some long gallery "Would you choose
An air like that? The gait is loose -
Or noble' Sudden in the sun
An oubliette winks where is he? Gone
Dead man's "I was' by God's "I am' -
All hero-worship comes to that
High heart, high thought, high fame, as flat
As a gravestone bring your Jacet jam -
The epitaph's an epigram
Dead there's an answer to arrest
All carping dust's his natural place?
He'll let the flies buzz round his face
And, though you slander, not protest?
-From such an one, exact the Best?
Opinions gold or brass are null
We chuck our flattery or abuse
Called Caesar's due, as Charon's dues
I' the teeth of some dead sage or fool
To mend the grinning of a skull
Be abstinent in praise and blame
The man's still mortal, who stands first
And mortal only, if last and worst
Then slowly lift so frail a fame
Or softly drop so poor a shame