# Littell's Living Age/Volume 135/Issue 1739/In Memoriam

* IN MEMORIAM.
* War's horror at its worst, the seeds of change
* Darkly at work for nations, churches, kings,
* What is there in an old man's death so strange
* To give it rank among eventful things?
* Nor king is he, nor president, nor pope;
* He holds nor sword of strength, nor keys of power;
* Hangs on his life nor world-wide fear nor hope;
* If he was e'er "the man," long past his hour.
* Yet but one statesman's exit, and no king's,
* Could give such theme for thought, and, tongue, and pen,
* As this small eighty-years-old bourgeois' brings
* The lightest hearts, and quickest wits, of men.
* France, save the fraction that flings filth for flowers,
* Utters one voice of sorrowing regret
* O'er him who gave her his long manhood's powers,
* Whom death, at eighty, found her soldier yet,
* Unbowed beneath the burden of fourscore,
* Donning his armor for the self-same fight
* In which, a stripling, erst the flag he bore
* Of might enthroned in power, with law-based right.
* What wonder France should sorrow so for him
* Who scorned what she scorns, held what she holds dear;
* Whose quick sense saw no truth, while it was dim,
* Content to rest in half-truth, while 'twas clear.
* The sharpest-shaping, keenest-biting wit
* That kept alive the memory of Voltaire;
* Most French of Frenchmen, apt with phrase to fit
* The unspoken sentiment that filled the air,
* So giving it the concrete life that moulds
* A party’s purpose, people's mood, to act;
* Finding, at need, the wanted word that holds
* A nation's fancy, till it turns to fact.
* Against such gifts, what was it that his pen
* At times postponed harsh truth to happy phrase?
* If, when he ministered as chief of men,
* The statesman grasped at times the meaner praise
* Of winning cleverly, than on the square?
* The jury he appealed to were his peers;
* His history was their legend, written fair;
* His spice of false won for his truth their ears.
* Nor only France he glassed, in fleck and flaw;
* From youth he was the soldier-sworn of right
* Set in the adamantine bounds of law,
* For that was first, would have been last, to fight.
* And therefore France, once more upon the verge
* Of that sad war 'tis still her fate to wage,
* 'Twixt might with power, right with but law to urge,
* Took him for champion even in his age.
* Prone as she is good service to forget,
* And fickle in her favor, as they say,
* Still in her heart she bore the man who set
* Weakness aside, and cast old age away,
* Posting the world to raise her up a friend;
* Then, harder task, subdued his wrath and shame,
* His conquered country's interest to defend,
* And melt her conquerors to milder frame.
* Who, when concession’s utmost boon was wrung,
* Despaired not of his country, stricken low,
* Beaten and bleeding, but her nerves re-strung
* In tune to his, weak wailing to forego;
* With hardness to endure, war's debt to pay,
* And peace's work with heart and hope set to,
* To earn the ransom she had wealth to pay,
* And envy of her conquerors thereto.
* For this she mourns him — lays upon his bier
* Tribute of common grief, the civic crown;
* And holds this little bourgeois, henceforth, dear,
* Among her great ones to the dead gone down.
* Punch.