<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116215" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Lost Leader</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Just for a handful of silver he left us,<br> Just for a riband to stick in his coast—<br>Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,<br> Lost all the others she lets us devote;<br>They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,<br> So much was theirs who so little allowed:<br>How all our copper had gone for his service!<br> Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!<br>We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,<br> Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,<br>Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,<br> Made him our pattern to live and to die!<br>Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,<br> Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!<br>He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,<br> —He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We shall march prospering,—not thro' his presence;<br> Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;<br>Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,<br> Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:<br>Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,<br> One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,<br>One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels,<br> One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!<br>Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!<br> There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,<br>Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,<br> Never glad confident morning again!<br>Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly,<br> Menace our heart ere we master his own;<br>Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,<br> Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+Browning">Robert Browning</a> from <i>Dramatic Romances and Lyrics</i><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116215" data-title="The Lost Leader de Robert Browning" data-description="I/Just for a handful of silver he left us,/ Just for a riband to stick in his coast—/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 w..."></div> </div> </div>

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