Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small][merged small]

To confront his Portrait for "The Wound Dresser" in "Leaves of Grass."

[blocks in formation]

(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears O heaven!

The passionate teeming plays this curtain hid!)

This glaze of God's serenest, purest sky,
This film of Satan's seething pit,
This heart's geography's map, this limit-

less small continent, this soundless
sea;

Out from the convolutions of this globe, This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon, than Jupiter, Venus, Mars, This condensation of the universe (nay, here the only universe,

Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapt);

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Of youth long sped and middling age declining

(As the first volume of a tale perused and laid away, and this the second, Songs, ventures, speculations, presently to close),

Lingering a moment here and now, to you I opposite turn,

As on the road, or at some crevice door by chance, or open'd window, Pausing, inclining, baring my head, you specially I greet,

To draw and clinch your soul for once inseparably with mine, Then travel, travel on.

WALT WHITMAN.

Here was a type of the true elder race, And 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,
Safe in himself as in a fate.

So always firmly he :

He knew to bide his time,

And can his fame abide,

Still patient in his simple faith sublime,

Till 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, Our 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.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.*

FOULLY ASSASSINATED APRIL 14, 1865.

You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,

His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,

His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,

His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, His lack of all we prize as debonair,

Of power or will to shine, of art to please;

You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,

My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,
Noting how to occasion's height he rose ;
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more
true;

How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows.

How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be; How, in good fortune and in ill, the same; Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,

Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.

He went about his work, such work as few
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand,
As one who knows, where there's a task to do,
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace
command;

Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,

That God makes instruments to work his will, If but that will we can arrive to know,

Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.

So he went forth to battle, on the side
That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied
His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting
mights;

The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,

The iron-bark, that turns the lumberer's axe, The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil,

The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks,

The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear,Such were the deeds that helped his youth to

train :

Rough culture, but such trees large fruit may bear,

If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.

Judging each step as though the way were So he grew up, a destined work to do,

plain,

Reckless, so it could point its paragraph

Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain:

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet,

Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?

Yes he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen;
To make me own this hind of princes peer,
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men.

• This tribute appeared in the London Punch, which, up to the time of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, had ridiculed and maligned him with all its well-known powers of pen and pencil.

And lived to do it: four long-suffering years' Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through, And then he heard the hisses change to cheers,

The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,

And took both with the same unwavering mood; Till, as he came on light, from darkling days, And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,

A felon hand, between the goal and him,

Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest, And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim, Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to

rest !

The words of mercy were upon his lips,
Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen,
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
To thoughts of peace on earth, good-will to men.

The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame :
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high;
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came!

A deed accurst! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
If more of horror or disgrace they bore;
But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly

out.

Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife, Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven; And with the martyr's crown crownest a life With much to praise, little to be forgiven.

TOM TAYLOR.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

"Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office

was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors."- Letter of H. G. OTIS.

IN a small chamber, friendless and unseen,

Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young

man;

The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean : Yet there the freedom of a race began.

Help came but slowly; surely no man yet
Put lever to the heavy world with less :

What need of help? He knew how types were set,
He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith,

The compact nucleus, round which systems grow:

Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith,
And whirls impregnate with the central glow.

O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born
In the rude stable, in the manger nursed!
What humble hands unbar those gates of morn
Through which the splendors of the New Day

burst!

Whatever can be known of earth we know,

Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snailshells curled;

No! said one man in Genoa, and that No

Out of the dark created this New World.

Who is it will not dare himself to trust?

Who is it hath not strength to stand alone? Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward Must? He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown.

Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here! See one straightforward conscience put in pawn To win a world; see the obedient sphere

By bravery's simple gravitation drawn ! Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present's lips repeated still, In our own single manhood to be bo'd, Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will? We stride the river daily at its spring,

Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, foresee What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring, How like an equal it shall greet the sea.

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong,
Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain !
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong,
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

THE OLD ADMIRAL.

ADMIRAL STEWART, U. S. NAVY.

GONE at last,

That brave old hero of the past! His spirit has a second birth, An unknown, grander life ;

All of him that was earth

Lies mute and cold,

Like a wrinkled sheath and old, Thrown off forever from the shimmering blade That has good entrance made

Upon some distant, glorious strife.

From another generation,

simpler age, to ours Old Ironsides came; The morn and noontide of the nation Alike he knew, nor yet outlived his fame, O, not outlived his fame!

What! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his The dauntless men whose service guards our shore cell,

Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her

frown?

Brave Luther answered Yes; that thunder's swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple,

crown.

Lengthen still their glory-roll

With his name to lead the scroll,

As a flagship at her fore

Carries the Union, with its azure and the stars, Symbol of times that are no more

And the old heroic wars.

[blocks in formation]

It was fifty years ago,

Upon the Gallic Sea,

He bore the banner of the free,

And fought the fight whereof our children know,

The deathful, desperate fight!

Under the fair moon's light

The frigate squared, and yawed to left and right. Every broadside swept to death a score !

Roundly played her guns and well, till their

fiery ensigns fell,

Neither foe replying more.

Earth to earth his dust is laid. Methinks his stately shade

On the shadow of a great ship leaves the shore; Over cloudless western seas

Seeks the far Hesperides,

The islands of the blest,

Where no turbulent billows roar,

Where is rest.

His ghost upon the shadowy quarter stands
Nearing the deathless lands.

There all his martial mates, renewed and strong,

Await his coming long.

I see the happy Heroes rise

With gratulation in their eyes: "Welcome, old comrade," Lawrence cries; "Ah, Stewart, tell us of the wars! Who win the glory and the scars? How floats the skyey flag,

stars?

Still speak they of Decatur's name?
Of Bainbridge's and Perry's fame!
Of me, who earliest came ?
Make ready, all:

All in silence, when the night-breeze cleared the Room for the Admiral !

[blocks in formation]

how many

Come, Stewart, tell us of the wars!"

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN,

KANE.

DIED FEBRUARY 16, 1857.

ALOFT upon an old basaltic erag,

Which, scalped by keen winds that defend

the Pole,

Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll
Around the secret of the mystic zone,
A mighty nation's star-bespangled flag
Flutters alone,

And underneath, upon the lifeless front
Of that drear cliff, a simple name is traced ;
Fit type of him who, famishing and gaunt,
But with a rocky purpose in his soul,
Breasted the gathering snows,

Clung to the drifting floes,

By want beleaguered, and by winter chased, Seeking the brother lost amid that frozen waste.

Not many months ago we greeted him,

Crowned with the icy honors of the North, Across the land his hard-won fame went forth, And Maine's deep woods were shaken limb by limb.

Will not break the slumbers deep, the beautiful, His own mild Keystone State, sedate and prim, ripe sleep,

Of this lion of the wave,

Burst from decorous quiet, as he came. Hot Southern lips, with eloquence aflame,

Will not trouble the old Admiral in his grave. Sounded his triumph. Texas, wild and grim,

Proffered its horny hand. The large-lunged West,

From out his giant breast,

Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main Jubilant to the sky,

Thundered the mighty cry,

HONOR TO KANE!

In vain, in vain beneath his feet we flung
The reddening roses! All in vain we poured
The golden wine, and round the shining board
Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung

With the thrice-tripled honors of the feast! Scarce the buds wilted and the voices ceased Ere the pure light that sparkled in his eyes, Bright as auroral fires in Southern skies,

Upon the ghastly foreheads of the crew; The whispers of rebellion, faint and few At first, but deepening ever till they grew Into black thoughts of murder, such the throng Of horrors bound the hero. High the song Should be that hymns the noble part he played! Sinking himself, yet ministering aid

To all around him. By a mighty will
Living defiant of the wants that kill,
Because his death would seal his comrades' fate;
Cheering with ceaseless and inventive skill
Those polar waters, dark and desolate.
Equal to every trial, every fate,

He stands, until spring, tardy with relief,
Unlocks the icy gate,

Faded and faded! And the brave young heart And the pale prisoners thread the world once

That the relentless Arctic winds had robbed
Of all its vital heat, in that long quest
For the lost captain, now within his breast
More and more faintly throbbed.
His was the victory; but as his grasp
Closed on the laurel crown with eager clasp,
Death launched a whistling dart;
And ere the thunders of applause were done
His bright eyes closed forever on the sun!
Too late, too late the splendid prize he won
In the Olympic race of Science and of Art!
Like to some shattered berg that, pale and lone,
Drifts from the white North to a Tropic zone,

And in the burning day
Wastes peak by peak away,

Till on some rosy even

It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he Tranquilly floated to a Southern sea, And melted into heaven!

He needs no tears who lived a noble life!
We will not weep for him who died so well;
But we will gather round the hearth, and tell
The story of his strife;

Such homage suits him well,

Better than funeral pomp or passing bell!

What tale of peril and self-sacrifice!
Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice,

With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow! Night lengthening into months; the ravenous floe

Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear
Crunches his prey. The insufficient share
Of loathsome food;

The lethargy of famine; the despair

Urging to labor, nervelessly pursued :

Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hued Like pallid masks, while dolefully behind Glimmered the fading embers of a mind! That awful hour, when through the prostrate band Delirium stalked, laying his burning hand

more,

To the steep cliffs of Greenland's pastoral shore Bearing their dying chief!

Time was when he should gain his spurs of gold! From royal hands, who wooed the knightly state;

The knell of old formalities is tolled,

And the world's knights are now self-conse

crate.

No grander episode doth chivalry hold

In all its annals, back to Charlemagne, Than that lone vigil of unceasing pain, Faithfully kept through hunger and through cold, By the good Christian kuight, Elisha Kane! FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN.

MAZZINI.

A LIGHT is out in Italy,

A golden tongue of purest flame. We watched it burning, long and lone,

And every watcher knew its name, And knew from whence its fervor came : That one rare light of Italy, Which put self-seeking souls to shame!

This light which burnt for Italy

Through all the blackness of her night, She doubted, once upon a time,

Because it took away her sight. She looked and said, There is no light!" It was thine eyes, poor Italy! That knew not dark apart from bright.

This flame which burnt for Italy,

It would not let her haters sleep. They blew at it with angry breath, And only fed its upward leap, And only made it hot and deep.

« VorigeDoorgaan »