  JULY 21, 1865 I. Weak-winged is song, Nor aims at that clear-ethered height Whither the brave deed climbs for light: We seem to do them wrong, 5Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, Our trivial song to honor those who come With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum, And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, A gracious memory to buoy up and save From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave Of the unventurous throng. II. 15To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back Her wisest Scholars, those who understood The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, And offered their fresh lives to make it good: No lore of Greece or Rome, 20No science peddling with the names of things, Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, Can lift our life with wings Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits, And lengthen out our dates 25With that clear fame whose memory sings In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates: Not such the trumpet-call Of thy diviner mood, 30That could thy sons entice From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, Into War's tumult rude: But rather far that stern device 35The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood In the dim; unventured wood, The VERITAS that lurks beneath The letter's unprolific sheath, Life of whate'er makes life worth living, 40Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving. III. Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, 50So loved her that they died for her, Tasting the raptured fleetness Of her divine completeness: Their higher instinct knew Those love her best who to themselves are true, 55And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; They followed her and found her Where all may hope to find, Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her. 60Where faith made whole with deed Breathes its awakening breath Into the lifeless creed, They saw her plumed and mailed, With sweet, stern face unveiled, IV. Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides Into the silent hollow of the past; What Is there that abides To make the next age better for the last? 70Is earth too poor to give us Something to live for here that shall outlive us,— Some more substantial boon Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle moon? The little that we see 75From doubt is never free; The little that we do Is but half-nobly true; With our laborious hiving What men call treasure, and the gods call dross, 80Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, Only secure in every one's conniving, A long account of nothings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, 85With all our pasteboard passions and desires, Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. Ah, there is something here Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, 90Something that gives our feeble light A high immunity from Night, Something that leaps life's narrow bars To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; A seed of sunshine that doth leaven 95Our earthly dulness with the beams of stars, And glorify our clay With light from fountains elder than the Day; A conscience more divine than we, A gladness fed with secret tears, 100A vexing, forward-reaching sense Of some more noble permanence; A light across the sea, Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate years. V. 105Whither leads the path To ampler fates that leads? Not down through flowery meads, To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds, 110But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. 115Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Lights the black lips of cannon, and the sword Dreams in its easeful sheath: But some day the live coal behind the thought. 120Whether from BaÄl's stone obscene, Or from the shrine serene Of God's pure altar brought, Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men: Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, And cries reproachful: "Was it, then, my praise, 130And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, The victim of thy genius, not its mate!" Life may be given in many ways, 135And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So generous is Fate; But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, 140To front a lie in arms and not to yield,— This shows, methinks, God's plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, 145Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed from within with all the strength he needs. VI. Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head, 150Wept with the passion of an angry grief: Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, 155And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote: For him her Old-World mould aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 160Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 165Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity! 170They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. 175Nothing of Europe here, Or, then, of Europe fronting morn-ward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface; Here was a type of the true elder race, 180And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not; it were too late; And some innative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, 185Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, 190Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 195Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American. VII. Long as man's hope insatiate can discern 200Or only guess some more inspiring goal Outside of Self, enduring as the pole, Along whose course the flying axles burn Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood; Long as below we cannot find 205The meed that stills the inexorable mind; So long this faith to some ideal Good, Under whatever mortal names it masks, That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, 210Feeling its challenged pulses leap, While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, Shall win man's praise and woman's love; Shall be a wisdom that we set above 215All other skills and gifts to culture dear, A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe Laurels that with a living passion breathe When other crowns are cold and soon grow sere. What brings us thronging these high rites to pay, 220And seal these hours the noblest of our year, Save that our brothers found this better way? VIII. We sit here in the Promised Land That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, We welcome back our bravest and our best:— Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, Who went forth brave and bright as any here! I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, 230But the sad strings complain, And will not please the ear: I sweep them for a paean, but they wane Again and yet again Into a dirge, and die away in pain. 235In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: Fitlier may others greet the living, For me the past is unforgiving; 240I with uncovered head Salute the sacred dead, Who went, and who return not,—Say not so! 'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; 245Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; No ban of endless night exiles the brave: We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! 250For never shall their aureoled presence lack: I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; We find in our dull road their shining track; In every nobler mood 255We feel the orient of their spirit glow, Part of our life's unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration; They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, 260Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation! IX. Who now shall sneer? Who dare again to say we trace Our lines to a plebeian race? 265Roundhead and Cavalier! Dreams are those names erewhile in battle loud; Forceless as is the shadow of a cloud, That is best blood that hath most iron, in 't, 270To edge resolve with, pouring without stint For what makes manhood dear. Tell us not of Plantagenets, Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl Down from some victor in a border-brawl! 275How poor their outworn coronets, Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears 280Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears With vain resentments and more vain regrets! X. Not in anger, not in pride, Pure from passion's mixture rude, Ever to base earth allied, 285But with far-heard gratitude, Still with heart and voice renewed, The strain should close that consecrates our brave. Lift the heart and lift the head! 290Lofty be its mood and grave, Not without a martial ring, Not without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation: Little right has he to sing 295Through whose heart in such an hour Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation! 'Tis no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, 300A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all,— Pulsing it again through them, 305Till the basest can no longer cower, Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her dower! 310If his passions, hopes, and fears, If his triumphs and his tears, Kept not measure with his people? Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves! Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! 315Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves! And from every mountain-peak Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, And so leap on in light from sea to sea, 320Till the glad news be sent Across a kindling continent, Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver: "Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her! She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, 325She of the open soul and open door, With room about her hearth for all mankind! Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, 330And bids her navies hold their thunders in. No challenge sends she to the elder world, That looked askance and hated; a light scorn Plays on her mouth, as round her mighty knees She calls her children back, and waits the morn 335Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas." XI. |
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