Page:In memoriam (IA inmemoriam00tennrich).pdf/108



thou look back on what hath been, As some divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began And on a simple village green;

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star;

Who makes by force his merit known And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne;

And moving up from high to higher, Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope The pillar of a people's hope, The centre of a world's desire;