Xv: To Lord Denman, Poem by Thomas Noon Talfourd

RESIGNING THE OFFICE OF LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND

There is a rapture in the great All Hail
With which a nation honours thy repose,
That proves thy image deathless-that the close
Of man's remotest age, whose boyhood glows
While pondering o'er thy lineaments, shall fail
To delegate to cold historic tale
What Denman was; for dignity that flows
Not in the moulds of compliment extern,
But from the noble spirit's purest urn,
Springs vital; justice shrined from wintry flaw
By beautiful regards, and thoughts that burn
With generous ire, within the soul shall draw
No form but thine, when distant times would learn
The embodied majesty of England's Law.