[Skip Navigation]

Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Peter Cooper

Joaquin Miller

  Give honor and love for evermore
To this great man gone to rest;
Peace on the dim Plutonian shore,
Rest in the land of the blest.

  I reckon him greater than any man
That ever drew sword in war;
I reckon him nobler than king or khan,
Braver and better by far.

  And wisest he in this whole wide land
Of hoarding till bent and gray;
For all you can hold in your cold dead hand
Is what you have given away.

  So whether to wander the stars or to rest
Forever hushed and dumb,
He gave with a zest and he gave his best—
Give him the best to come.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From An American Anthology, 1787-1900 | Houghton Mifflin, 1900
Add Keyword Tags

Separate each tag with a space. You may add as many tags as you'd like to each poem.

What are tags?
Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

More Info

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any Internet device.