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Title: The Death Of A Great Man
Author: Alfred Noyes [
More Titles by Noyes]
No--not that he is dead. The pang's not there,
Nor in the City's many-coloured bloom
Of swift black-lettered posters, which the throng
Passes with bovine stare,
To say He is dead and Is it going to rain?
Or hum stray snatches of a rag-time song.
Nor is it in that falsest shibboleth
(Which orators toss to the dumb scorn of death)
That all the world stands weeping at his tomb.
London is dining, dancing, through it all.
And, in the unchecked smiles along the street
Where men, that slightly knew him, lightly meet,
With all the old indifferent grimaces,
There is no jot of grief, no tittle of pain.
No. No. For nearer things do most tears fall.
Grief is for near and little things. But pride,
O, pride was to be found by two or three,
And glory in his great battling memory,
Prouder and purer than the loud world knows,
In one more dreadful sign, the day he died--
The dreadful light upon a thousand faces,
The peace upon the faces of his foes.
[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Death Of A Great Man
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