Browning's England

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coat-

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others, she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,

So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags-were they purple, his heart had been proud!

15 We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freeman,

-He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!