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C J Dennis - John Galsworthy
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Not for vague honors, not for treacherous power
   He lived and toiled thro` this, his earthy span;
But to uphold and cultivate the dower,
   God-given, for enlightment of man,
Here was no tale of talents mis-applied,
But of gifts to the last hour multiplied.
 
Grave, kindly scrivener, moved to no swift wrath
   By tyrannies or Greed`s condoning pleas:
Pity was there for Vandal and for Goth
   Clutching insensate at earth`s vanities.
Pity was there, with truth and justice, when
He held his shining mirror up to men.
 
That they might see themselves; not as they seem
   To smug content and sleek complacency
Lulled by the opiate of their false dream;
   But as some wise, kind visitant might see
And weigh and, by wise standards, judge the worth
Of all the sad frailities of earth.
 
So he has lived; and so he lays him down
   Leaving a picture with us at the end,
Not of some grim reformer`s fretful frown;
   But of a pitying, understanding friend.
And if, thro` him, this blundering world should gain
One mite in wisdom, life were not in vain.
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