Chapter 25

What scenes from Wilkie's pencil sprung, The minstrel saw but left unsung! What shapes the pen of Collins drew, No painter clad in living hue!

But on our artist's shadowy screen A stranger miracle is seen Than priest unveils or pilgrim seeks,-- The poem breathes, the picture speaks!

And so his double name comes true, They christened better than they knew, And Art proclaims him twice her son,-- Painter and poet, both in one!

MEMORIAL VERSES

FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1865

CHORAL: "LUTHER'S JUDGMENT HYMN."

O THOU of soul and sense and breath The ever-present Giver, Unto thy mighty Angel, Death, All flesh thou dost deliver; What most we cherish we resign, For life and death alike are thine, Who reignest Lord forever!

Our hearts lie buried in the dust With him so true and tender, The patriot's stay, the people's trust, The shield of the offender; Yet every murmuring voice is still, As, bowing to thy sovereign will, Our best-loved we surrender.

Dear Lord, with pitying eye behold This martyr generation, Which thou, through trials manifold, Art showing thy salvation Oh let the blood by murder spilt Wash out thy stricken children's guilt And sanctify our nation!

Be thou thy orphaned Israel's friend, Forsake thy people never, In One our broken Many blend, That none again may sever! Hear us, O Father, while we raise With trembling lips our song of praise, And bless thy name forever!

FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES

CAMBRIDGE, JULY 21, 1865

FOUR summers coined their golden light in leaves, Four wasteful autumns flung them to the gale, Four winters wore the shroud the tempest weaves, The fourth wan April weeps o'er hill and vale;

And still the war-clouds scowl on sea and land, With the red gleams of battle staining through, When lo! as parted by an angel's hand, They open, and the heavens again are blue!

Which is the dream, the present or the past? The night of anguish or the joyous morn? The long, long years with horrors overcast, Or the sweet promise of the day new-born?

Tell us, O father, as thine arms infold Thy belted first-born in their fast embrace, Murmuring the prayer the patriarch breathed of old,-- "Now let me die, for I have seen thy face!"

Tell us, O mother,--nay, thou canst not speak, But thy fond eyes shall answer, brimmed with joy,-- Press thy mute lips against the sunbrowned cheek, Is this a phantom,--thy returning boy?

Tell us, O maiden,--ah, what canst thou tell That Nature's record is not first to teach,-- The open volume all can read so well, With its twin rose-hued pages full of speech?

And ye who mourn your dead,--how sternly true The crushing hour that wrenched their lives away, Shadowed with sorrow's midnight veil for you, For them the dawning of immortal day!

Dream-like these years of conflict, not a dream! Death, ruin, ashes tell the awful tale, Read by the flaming war-track's lurid gleam No dream, but truth that turns the nations pale.

For on the pillar raised by martyr hands Burns the rekindled beacon of the right,

Sowing its seeds of fire o'er all the lands,-- Thrones look a century older in its light!

Rome had her triumphs; round the conqueror's car The ensigns waved, the brazen clarions blew, And o'er the reeking spoils of bandit war With outspread wings the cruel eagles flew;

Arms, treasures, captives, kings in clanking chains Urged on by trampling cohorts bronzed and scarred, And wild-eyed wonders snared on Lybian plains, Lion and ostrich and camelopard.

Vain all that praetors clutched, that consuls brought When Rome's returning legions crowned their lord; Less than the least brave deed these hands have wrought, We clasp, unclinching from the bloody sword.

Theirs was the mighty work that seers foretold; They know not half their glorious toil has won, For this is Heaven's same battle,-joined of old When Athens fought for us at Marathon!

Behold a vision none hath understood! The breaking of the Apocalyptic seal; Twice rings the summons.--Hail and fire and blood! Then the third angel blows his trumpet-peal.

Loud wail the dwellers on the myrtled coasts, The green savannas swell the maddened cry, And with a yell from all the demon hosts Falls the great star called Wormwood from the sky!

Bitter it mingles with the poisoned flow Of the warm rivers winding to the shore, Thousands must drink the waves of death and woe, But the star Wormwood stains the heavens no more!

Peace smiles at last; the Nation calls her sons To sheathe the sword; her battle-flag she furls, Speaks in glad thunders from unspotted guns, No terror shrouded in the smoke-wreath's curls.

O ye that fought for Freedom, living, dead, One sacred host of God's anointed Queen, For every holy, drop your veins have shed We breathe a welcome to our bowers of green!

Welcome, ye living! from the foeman's gripe Your country's banner it was yours to wrest,-- Ah, many a forehead shows the banner-stripe, And stars, once crimson, hallow many a breast.

And ye, pale heroes, who from glory's bed Mark when your old battalions form in line, Move in their marching ranks with noiseless tread, And shape unheard the evening countersign,

Come with your comrades, the returning brave; Shoulder to shoulder they await you here; These lent the life their martyr-brothers gave,-- Living and dead alike forever dear!

EDWARD EVERETT

"OUR FIRST CITIZEN"

Read at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, January 30, 1865.

WINTER'S cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast; For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed, What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told.

Even as the bells, in one consenting chime, Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air, So joined all voices, in that mournful time, His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare.

What place is left for words of measured praise, Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen, Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase That shapes his image in the souls of men?

Yet while the echoes still repeat his name, While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse, Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse,--

Verse that, in ever-changing ebb and flow, Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush and rest, Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and slow, Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast.

This was a mind so rounded, so complete, No partial gift of Nature in excess, That, like a single stream where many meet, Each separate talent counted something less.

A little hillock, if it lonely stand, Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign; While the broad summit of the table-land Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain.

Servant of all his powers, that faithful slave, Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with his toils, To every ruder task his shoulder gave, And loaded every day with golden spoils.

Order, the law of Heaven, was throned supreme O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, thought; True as the dial's shadow to the beam, Each hour was equal to the charge it brought.

Too large his compass for the nicer skill That weighs the world of science grain by grain; All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will That claimed the franchise of its whole domain.

Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, Art, history, song,--what meanings lie in each Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre, And poured their mingling music through his speech.

Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days, Whose ravishing division held apart The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, Moved in all breasts the selfsame human heart.

Subdued his accents, as of one who tries To press some care, some haunting sadness down; His smile half shadow; and to stranger eyes The kingly forehead wore an iron crown.

He was not armed to wrestle with the storm, To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form, The rose of Academe,--the perfect flower!

Such was the stately scholar whom we knew In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm.

Ah, God forgive us! did we hold too cheap The heart we might have known, but would not see, And look to find the nation's friend asleep Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane?

That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death With all a hero's honors round his name; As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath, And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame.

So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise,-- Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years,-- "He who had lived the mark of all men's praise Died with the tribute of a Nation's tears."

SHAKESPEARE

TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

APRIL 23, 1864

"Who claims our Shakespeare from that realm unknown, Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the deep, Where Genoa's roving mariner was blown? Her twofold Saint's-day let our England keep; Shall warring aliens share her holy task?" The Old World echoes ask.

O land of Shakespeare! ours with all thy past, Till these last years that make the sea so wide; Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride In every noble word thy sons bequeathed The air our fathers breathed!

War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife, We turn to other days and far-off lands,

Live o'er in dreams the Poet's faded life, Come with fresh lilies in our fevered hands To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple flowers,-- Not his the need, but ours!

We call those poets who are first to mark Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,-- Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone; For him the Lord of light the curtain rent That veils the firmament.

The greatest for its greatness is half known, Stretching beyond our narrow quadrant-lines,-- As in that world of Nature all outgrown Where Calaveras lifts his awful pines, And cast from Mariposa's mountain-wall Nevada's cataracts fall.

Yet heaven's remotest orb is partly ours, Throbbing its radiance like a beating heart; In the wide compass of angelic powers The instinct of the blindworm has its part; So in God's kingliest creature we behold The flower our buds infold.

With no vain praise we mock the stone-carved name Stamped once on dust that moved with pulse and breath, As thinking to enlarge that amplest fame Whose undimmed glories gild the night of death: We praise not star or sun; in these we see Thee, Father, only thee!

Thy gifts are beauty, wisdom, power, and love: We read, we reverence on this human soul,-- Earth's clearest mirror of the light above,-- Plain as the record on thy prophet's scroll, When o'er his page the effluent splendors poured, Thine own "Thus saith the Lord!"

This player was a prophet from on high, Thine own elected. Statesman, poet, sage, For him thy sovereign pleasure passed them by; Sidney's fair youth, and Raleigh's ripened age, Spenser's chaste soul, and his imperial mind Who taught and shamed mankind.

Therefore we bid our hearts' Te Deum rise, Nor fear to make thy worship less divine, And hear the shouted choral shake the skies, Counting all glory, power, and wisdom thine; For thy great gift thy greater name adore, And praise thee evermore!

In this dread hour of Nature's utmost need, Thanks for these unstained drops of freshening dew! Oh, while our martyrs fall, our heroes bleed, Keep us to every sweet remembrance true, Till from this blood-red sunset springs new-born Our Nation's second morn!

IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE

Read at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society, May 25, 1864.

No mystic charm, no mortal art, Can bid our loved companions stay; The bands that clasp them to our heart Snap in death's frost and fall apart; Like shadows fading with the day, They pass away.

The young are stricken in their pride, The old, long tottering, faint and fall; Master and scholar, side by side, Through the dark portals silent glide, That open in life's mouldering wall And close on all.

Our friend's, our teacher's task was done, When Mercy called him from on high; A little cloud had dimmed the sun, The saddening hours had just begun, And darker days were drawing nigh: 'T was time to die.

A whiter soul, a fairer mind, A life with purer course and aim, A gentler eye, a voice more kind, We may not look on earth to find. The love that lingers o'er his name Is more than fame.

These blood-red summers ripen fast; The sons are older than the sires; Ere yet the tree to earth is cast, The sapling falls before the blast; Life's ashes keep their covered fires,-- Its flame expires.

Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe, Whose deadlier breath than shot or shell Has laid the best and bravest low, His boy, all bright in morning's glow, That high-souled youth he loved so well, Untimely fell.

Yet still he wore his placid smile, And, trustful in the cheering creed That strives all sorrow to beguile, Walked calmly on his way awhile Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed Must ever bleed!

So they both left us, sire and son, With opening leaf, with laden bough The youth whose race was just begun, The wearied man whose course was run, Its record written on his brow, Are brothers now.

Brothers!--The music of the sound Breathes softly through my closing strain; The floor we tread is holy ground, Those gentle spirits hovering round, While our fair circle joins again Its broken chain.

1864.

HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869

BONAPARTE, AUGUST 15, 1769.-HUMBOLDT, SEPTEMBER 14, 1769

ERE yet the warning chimes of midnight sound, Set back the flaming index of the year, Track the swift-shifting seasons in their round Through fivescore circles of the swinging sphere!

Lo, in yon islet of the midland sea That cleaves the storm-cloud with its snowy crest, The embryo-heir of Empires yet to be, A month-old babe upon his mother's breast.

Those little hands that soon shall grow so strong In their rude grasp great thrones shall rock and fall, Press her soft bosom, while a nursery song Holds the world's master in its slender thrall.

Look! a new crescent bends its silver bow; A new-lit star has fired the eastern sky; Hark! by the river where the lindens blow A waiting household hears an infant's cry.

This, too, a conqueror! His the vast domain, Wider than widest sceptre-shadowed lands; Earth and the weltering kingdom of the main Laid their broad charters in his royal hands.

His was no taper lit in cloistered cage, Its glimmer borrowed from the grove or porch; He read the record of the planet's page By Etna's glare and Cotopaxi's torch.

He heard the voices of the pathless woods; On the salt steppes he saw the starlight shine; He scaled the mountain's windy solitudes, And trod the galleries of the breathless mine.

For him no fingering of the love-strung lyre, No problem vague, by torturing schoolmen vexed; He fed no broken altar's dying fire, Nor skulked and scowled behind a Rabbi's text.

For God's new truth he claimed the kingly robe That priestly shoulders counted all their own, Unrolled the gospel of the storied globe And led young Science to her empty throne.

While the round planet on its axle spins One fruitful year shall boast its double birth, And show the cradles of its mighty twins, Master and Servant of the sons of earth.

Which wears the garland that shall never fade, Sweet with fair memories that can never die? Ask not the marbles where their bones are laid, But bow thine ear to hear thy brothers' cry:--

"Tear up the despot's laurels by the root, Like mandrakes, shrieking as they quit the soil! Feed us no more upon the blood-red fruit That sucks its crimson from the heart of Toil!

"We claim the food that fixed our mortal fate,-- Bend to our reach the long-forbidden tree! The angel frowned at Eden's eastern gate,-- Its western portal is forever free!

"Bring the white blossoms of the waning year, Heap with full hands the peaceful conqueror's shrine Whose bloodless triumphs cost no sufferer's tear! Hero of knowledge, be our tribute thine!"

POEM

AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1869

SAY not the Poet dies! Though in the dust he lies, He cannot forfeit his melodious breath, Unsphered by envious death! Life drops the voiceless myriads from its roll; Their fate he cannot share, Who, in the enchanted air Sweet with the lingering strains that Echo stole, Has left his dearer self, the music of his soul!

We o'er his turf may raise Our notes of feeble praise, And carve with pious care for after eyes The stone with "Here he lies;" He for himself has built a nobler shrine, Whose walls of stately rhyme Roll back the tides of time, While o'er their gates the gleaming tablets shine That wear his name inwrought with many a golden line!

Call not our Poet dead, Though on his turf we tread! Green is the wreath their brows so long have worn,-- The minstrels of the morn, Who, while the Orient burned with new-born flame, Caught that celestial fire And struck a Nation's lyre These taught the western winds the poet's name; Theirs the first opening buds, the maiden flowers of fame!

Count not our Poet dead! The stars shall watch his bed, The rose of June its fragrant life renew His blushing mound to strew, And all the tuneful throats of summer swell With trills as crystal-clear As when he wooed the ear Of the young muse that haunts each wooded dell, With songs of that "rough land" he loved so long and well!

He sleeps; he cannot die! As evening's long-drawn sigh, Lifting the rose-leaves on his peaceful mound, Spreads all their sweets around, So, laden with his song, the breezes blow From where the rustling sedge Frets our rude ocean's edge To the smooth sea beyond the peaks of snow. His soul the air enshrines and leaves but dust below!

HYMN

FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNERSTONE OF HARVARD MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER 6, 1870

NOT with the anguish of hearts that are breaking Come we as mourners to weep for our dead; Grief in our breasts has grown weary of aching, Green is the turf where our tears we have shed.

While o'er their marbles the mosses are creeping, Stealing each name and its legend away, Give their proud story to Memory's keeping, Shrined in the temple we hallow to-day.

Hushed are their battle-fields, ended their marches, Deaf are their ears to the drum-beat of morn,--

Rise from the sod, ye fair columns and arches Tell their bright deeds to the ages unborn!

Emblem and legend may fade from the portal, Keystone may crumble and pillar may fall; They were the builders whose work is immortal, Crowned with the dome that is over us all!

HYMN

FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL AT CAMBRIDGE, JUNE 23, 1874

WHERE, girt around by savage foes, Our nurturing Mother's shelter rose, Behold, the lofty temple stands, Reared by her children's grateful hands!

Firm are the pillars that defy The volleyed thunders of the sky; Sweet are the summer wreaths that twine With bud and flower our martyrs' shrine.

The hues their tattered colors bore Fall mingling on the sunlit floor Till evening spreads her spangled pall, And wraps in shade the storied hall.

Firm were their hearts in danger's hour, Sweet was their manhood's morning flower, Their hopes with rainbow hues were bright,-- How swiftly winged the sudden night!

O Mother! on thy marble page Thy children read, from age to age, The mighty word that upward leads Through noble thought to nobler deeds.

TRUTH, heaven-born TRUTH, their fearless guide, Thy saints have lived, thy heroes died; Our love has reared their earthly shrine, Their glory be forever thine!

HYMN

AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES SUMNER, APRIL 29, 1874

SUNG BY MALE VOICES TO A NATIONAL AIR OF HOLLAND

ONCE more, ye sacred towers, Your solemn dirges sound; Strew, loving hands, the April flowers, Once more to deck his mound. A nation mourns its dead, Its sorrowing voices one, As Israel's monarch bowed his head And cried, "My son! My son!"

Why mourn for him?--For him The welcome angel came Ere yet his eye with age was dim Or bent his stately frame; His weapon still was bright, His shield was lifted high To slay the wrong, to save the right,-- What happier hour to die?

Thou orderest all things well; Thy servant's work was done; He lived to hear Oppression's knell, The shouts for Freedom won. Hark!! from the opening skies The anthem's echoing swell,-- "O mourning Land, lift up thine eyes! God reigneth. All is well!"

RHYMES OF AN HOUR

ADDRESS

FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, NEW YORK, DECEMBER 3, 1873

HANG out our banners on the stately tower It dawns at last--the long-expected hour I The steep is climbed, the star-lit summit won, The builder's task, the artist's labor done; Before the finished work the herald stands, And asks the verdict of your lips and hands!

Shall rosy daybreak make us all forget The golden sun that yester-evening set? Fair was the fabric doomed to pass away Ere the last headaches born of New Year's Day; With blasting breath the fierce destroyer came And wrapped the victim in his robes of flame; The pictured sky with redder morning blushed, With scorching streams the naiad's fountain gushed, With kindling mountains glowed the funeral pyre, Forests ablaze and rivers all on fire,-- The scenes dissolved, the shrivelling curtain fell,-- Art spread her wings and sighed a long farewell!

Mourn o'er the Player's melancholy plight,-- Falstaff in tears, Othello deadly white,-- Poor Romeo reckoning what his doublet cost, And Juliet whimpering for her dresses lost,-- Their wardrobes burned, their salaries all undrawn, Their cues cut short, their occupation gone!

"Lie there in dust," the red-winged demon cried, "Wreck of the lordly city's hope and pride!" Silent they stand, and stare with vacant gaze, While o'er the embers leaps the fitful blaze; When, to! a hand, before the startled train, Writes in the ashes, "It shall rise again,-- Rise and confront its elemental foes!" The word was spoken, and the walls arose, And ere the seasons round their brief career The new-born temple waits the unborn year.

Ours was the toil of many a weary day Your smiles, your plaudits, only can repay; We are the monarchs of the painted scenes, You, you alone the real Kings and Queens! Lords of the little kingdom where we meet, We lay our gilded sceptres at your feet, Place in your grasp our portal's silvered keys With one brief utterance: We have tried to please. Tell us, ye sovereigns of the new domain, Are you content-or have we toiled in vain?

With no irreverent glances look around The realm you rule, for this is haunted ground! Here stalks the Sorcerer, here the Fairy trips, Here limps the Witch with malice-working lips, The Graces here their snowy arms entwine, Here dwell the fairest sisters of the Nine,-- She who, with jocund voice and twinkling eye, Laughs at the brood of follies as they fly; She of the dagger and the deadly bowl, Whose charming horrors thrill the trembling soul; She who, a truant from celestial spheres, In mortal semblance now and then appears, Stealing the fairest earthly shape she can-- Sontag or Nilsson, Lind or Malibran; With these the spangled houri of the dance,-- What shaft so dangerous as her melting glance, As poised in air she spurns the earth below, And points aloft her heavenly-minded toe!