"The world knows nothing of its greatest men."
They have no place in storied page;
No rest in marble shrine;
They are past and gone with a perished age,
They died and "made no sign."
But work that shall find its wages yet,
And deeds that their God did not forget,
Done for their love divine--
These were their mourners, and these shall be
The crowns of their immortality.
O, seek them not where sleep the dead,
Ye shall not find their trace;
No graven stone is at their head,
No green grass hides their face;
But sad and unseen is their silent grave;
It may be the sand or the deep sea wave,
Or a lonely desert place;
For they needed no prayers and no mourning-bell--
They were tombed in true hearts that knew them well.
They healed sick hearts till theirs were broken,
And dried sad eyes till theirs lost light;
We shall know at last by a certain token
How they fought and fell in the fight.
Salt tears of sorrow unbeheld,
Passionate cries unchronicled,
And silent strifes for the right--
Angels shall count them, and earth shall sigh
That she left her best children to battle and die.
--Edwin Arnold.