Since thou and those who died with thee for right
Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!

The speaker addresses a figure who died “for right,” pairing that death with others who shared the same cause. The lines suggest a bitter irony: even after such sacrifices, the “Present” still has lessons to offer—proofs of what justice requires—yet society refuses to learn them (“but in vain”). The archaic “thou” gives the address a solemn, elegiac tone, as if spoken at a grave or in a commemorative poem. The emphasis falls less on personal mourning than on moral indictment: the dead have paid the ultimate price, but the living squander the meaning of that price by repeating old wrongs.