"And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the Temples of his Gods?"

In trying to show that Macaulay had not the poetic sense he was
really showing that he himself had not the dramatic sense. The
baldness of the idea and of the language had evidently offended him.
But this is exactly where the true merit lies. Macaulay is giving
the rough, blunt words with which a simple-minded soldier appeals
to two comrades to help him in a deed of valour. Any high-flown
sentiment would have been absolutely out of character. The lines
are, I think, taken with their context, admirable ballad poetry, and
have just the dramatic quality and sense which a ballad poet must
have. That opinion of Arnold's shook my faith in his judgment, and
yet I would forgive a good deal to the man who wrote--

"One more charge and then be dumb,
When the forts of Folly fall,
May the victors when they come
Find my body near the wall."

Not a bad verse that for one's life aspiration.

This is one of the things which human society has not yet
understood--the value of a noble, inspiriting text. When it does
we shall meet them everywhere engraved on appropriate places, and
our progress through the streets will be brightened and ennobled
by one continual series of beautiful mental impulses and images,