April 11, 1885.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

169

PICTURE SUNDAY.

(THINGS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNSAID.

She. “ Thanks so much for giving mb this opportunity of seeing your
Academy Picture, Mr. McDuffer—and Good-bye !

Be. “ Delighted to have seen you.
see Shythe’s Picture, over the way!’

She. “Oh no. I shall see that at the Academy, you know

I SUPPOSE YOU ABE NOW GOING TO

GORDON!

(Mr. Punch's Contribution to the “ Memorial.”)

Shall it be said that English tributes slacken,
Slow-swelling, stinted in so high a cause,

"When English tongues have lavished loud’applause ?

A thought our pride to check, our fame to blacken.!

Not so poor-hearted surely, not so prone
To that cheap empty flow of words alone,

Which is our day’s disease ! Is that large life
The destined quickener, not of high desire
And liberal love, but faction’s foolish fire ?

Have we no share in the heroic strife,

Save meanly to admire ?

Not with mad words, or many,•'may we mourn thee,
Great heart, whose silent grandeur seems to shame
Our tonguester time. From us, but not from fame,

Or a land’s love, hath lurking treachery torn thee ;

So hope must fain admit at last, at last,

Unwillingly ; and a great darkness cast

O’er every hearth in England witnesseth,

More than much speech, with what o’ermastering spell
Thy spirit moved us, who scarce knew thee well.

Ere round the earth the record of thy death
Rang its heart-chilling knell!

Hero, we hail thee ! The vulgarian rahhle
Of starred self-seekers and of sceptred ghouls
Have made that name strike sickness to men’s'souls ;

But the war-chronicler’s barbaric babble,

The courtier’s dulcet panegyric, find
No thrice-worn theme in thine heroic mind,

Which honours moved not, nor the month of praise,

Nor any noise of general acclaim.

Chen with what voice shall the loud herald, Fame,
Speakforth thy signal splendour, with what bays
Thy brows assume to frame ?

Not the mere warrior’s blood-bedabbled laurel,

Though never knight borne homeward on his shield
Hath greener reaped from any stricken field ;

But as fame’s bauble and as childhood’s coral
Lightly thou wouldst have held the trivial leaf.

He who to his own breast the steely sheaf
Of spear-points gathered, and so gladly died
To break the foe,* had something of thine heart,

Who, lonely ’midst large hosts, eouldst play thy part
Steadfastly sacrificial; gentle-eyed

Confronting death’s swift dart.

Faith-fired to fearless firmness such as only
Faith may inspire, emancipate from self.

High above pride as the low spell of pelf,

How enviable, 0 loyal heart and lonely,

Thy radiant isolation, like a star
That from the unfathomed gulfs of space afar
With calm resplendent clarity flames on
In unapproached yet serviceable light!

How narrower seem the heavens, and less bright,

Since thou from our expectant gaze art gone,

Leaving us with the night!

Gordon ! A name to gild our island story,

Opulent yet in many a noble name,

With lustre brighter than mere statecraft’s fame,

More radiant than the warrior’s glittering glory.

Such lesser lights eclipse them in the fine
Sun-glow of selfless valour such as thine,

Soldier whose sword, like Galahad’s, was not used
To hew out honour, but to champion right;
Plan-shaper who, in council as in fight,

Wast endlessly resourceful, yet refused,

Death-snared, an easy flight!

We picture thee, with hearts that thrill yet sicken,

One in the waste, alone against a host,

Like that Pompeian sentinel at his post.

Firm, whilst a hundred perils round thee thicken
Hourly, and hourly fades the hope of aid
From England. Through the Desert night’s dusk shade
We watch thee send that vigilant gaze in vain
Across the silent sand-flats mile on mile ;

To death resigned, unwitting that the while
Thy brave belated brethren toil and strain
Toward thee o’er the Nile.

We chafe, we grieve with unavailing sorrow,

That treachery’s stroke was swifter than our stride,
That trapped, betrayed, our trusting hero died
Unreached by rescuing hands, which on the morrow
Triumphantly had grasped his own and spread
Between him and the traitor. Gordon dead !

Belief shrinks hack as from some black sheer verge,

And hope, long failing, but late quickening
To a new life, like blossoms in the spring,

One last faint wistful plea is fain to urge
For keeping still a-wing.

Dead ? Nay, not so! The enduring inspiration
Of such a spirit sways beyond all death,

A quickening presence, an abiding breath.

It lives through all the being ot the Nation,

And far beyond the foam, like a quick flame,

Leaps to the hearts of all who hear our name,

Though under other stars ; so that through thee
Kinship more promptly speaks, more proudly thrills
Into one phalanx of heroic wills
Men. of thy blood, wide-sundered though they ho
By seas and wastes and hills.

* Arnold 'Winkeleied, at the Battle of Sempach.

Hic Jacet.—A “Government Bill on Cemeteries,”
proposing “ to permit the continuance of consecration as
a religious ceremony, but to deprive it of any legal effect,”
will, it is said, he introduced after April by Mr. Osborne
Morgan. In connection with interment Mr. Morgan
has made quite a name, distinct from, though decidedly
associated with, that of a Morgue’un.

VOL. LXXXVllI.

a