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Charles George Gordon.

Topics: classic

"Rather be dead than praised," he said,     That hero, like a hero dead,     In this slack-sinewed age endued     With more than antique fortitude!     "Rather be dead than praised!" Shall we,     Who loved thee, now that Death sets free     Thine eager soul, with word and line     Profane that empty house of thine?     Nay,--let us hold, be mute. Our pain     Will not be less that we refrain;     And this our silence shall but be     A larger monument to thee.

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""Rather be dead than praised," he said,..."

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