the lost leader...URGENT!!!?

Question

hi, i need a vague and rough meaning of these lines

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat--
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote

these are some lines of the poem "the lost leader" by robert browning

PLEASE!!! Urgently needed..thnx :)

Answer 1

When considering, or responding to, evocative lines, referred to as "poetics", there is always the risk of too much stale, over-weighted old culture - when the world needs leaders, it also needs well thought out political solutions, space for meditation also.
Those who join the Internet communications highway don't always consider the old archaic files and books left as real print on real paper in libraries....
This I found written in one book for GCSE Biology studies:
"Figure 4 Californian Redwoods. Some of these trees are over 100 metres tall. Transpiration pulls water........."
Someone had written:
"I really miss my home-town California. Just looking at this photo makes me homesick. I also miss my friends. All trees are our friends!!"
Well, that was one message that got a second chance, a real-time space, perhaps, to communicate... How and why, well that we have yet to find out, and the Pied Piper, (see poem, also by R. Browning) was a wise one, but had not had his eyes opened yet to the way of the Buddhas, the way of enlightenment.
Many people look for leaders, and the spiritual way these days, and for answers to the problems of the environment, but the message, as in your poem, is that the 'proverbial Piper' has yet to be paid, and there is much work to be done.
More writings and links on these themes on my website:
http://www.ecomarshosgame.com
See: Writings, Eco-Links, News Items.
Email: [e-mail],
or, [e-mail]

Answer 2

Your proverbial heart? Or, your physical heart? The answer, of course depends not on which heart you mean, but which mind you mean? Referring to the phrase, "he's lost his mind" we can gather that if you did lose your proverbial heart, you could only lose your 'mind' as in, your sanity, depending on what choices you chose thereafter. With the mind as in the 'ego' the thought processes that sometimes control us, if you lost your proverbial heart , you would more than likely lose your mind as it was because then you wouldn't function as a typical human anymore. You'd become robotic, lacking empathy, compassion and other human traits that influence the mind and make you human. You would become a machine, and their minds are something completely different. The question would become, what would be the driving force of your new state of mind? What would influence your decisions? If you meant losing your actual, physical heart... well, then I would say yes and no to losing your mind, any mind. Yes, because you would be dead. Your body as you knew it would no longer be functioning on any level, and therefore be without mind. No, because it is said the 'mind' never dies, but overlaps from reincarnation to reincarnation, which explains why we carry some habits and memories through, often being perceived as genetics, dream states or deja vu. Although it is actually your spirit or soul that is doing the reincarnating, the soul comes from the one soul that inhabits everything, and so your 'mind' that learns more with every reincarnation is actually your very individualism. Without it, you are not you.

Answer 3

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat---
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags---were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,---they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the free-men,
---He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

II.

We shall march prospering,---not thro' his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,---not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,---while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more foot-path untrod,
One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part---the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him---strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!