Part 3

And the lesson we teach with the sword and the pen Is to all of God's children, "We also are men! If you wrong us we smart, if you prick us we bleed, If you love us, no quarrel with color or creed!"

You'll find us a well-meaning, free-spoken crowd, Good-natured enough, but a little too loud,-- To be sure, there is always a bit of a row When we choose our Tycoon, and especially now.

You'll take it all calmly,--we want you to see What a peaceable fight such a contest can be, And of one thing be certain, however it ends, You will find that our voters have chosen your friends.

If the horse that stands saddled is first in the race, You will greet your old friend with the weed in his face; And if the white hat and the White House agree, You'll find H. G. really as loving as he.

But oh, what a pity--once more I must say-- That we could not have joined in a "Japanese day"! Such greeting we give you to-night as we can; Long life to our brothers and friends of Japan!

The Lord of the mountain looks down from his crest As the banner of morning unfurls in the West; The Eagle was always the friend of the Sun; You are welcome!--The song of the cage-bird is done.

BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

NOVEMBER 3, 1864

O EVEN-HANDED Nature! we confess This life that men so honor, love, and bless Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less.

We count the precious seasons that remain; Strike not the level of the golden grain, But heap it high with years, that earth may gain.

What heaven can lose,--for heaven is rich in song Do not all poets, dying, still prolong Their broken chants amid the seraph throng,

Where, blind no more, Ionia's bard is seen, And England's heavenly minstrel sits between The Mantuan and the wan-cheeked Florentine?

This was the first sweet singer in the cage Of our close-woven life. A new-born age Claims in his vesper song its heritage.

Spare us, oh spare us long our heart's desire! Moloch, who calls our children through the fire, Leaves us the gentle master of the lyre.

We count not on the dial of the sun The hours, the minutes, that his sands have run; Rather, as on those flowers that one by one.

From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display Till evening's planet with her guiding ray Leads in the blind old mother of the day,

We reckon by his songs, each song a flower, The long, long daylight, numbering hour by hour, Each breathing sweetness like a bridal bower.

His morning glory shall we e'er forget? His noontide's full-blown lily coronet? His evening primrose has not opened yet;

Nay, even if creeping Time should hide the skies In midnight from his century-laden eyes, Darkened like his who sang of Paradise,

Would not some hidden song-bud open bright As the resplendent cactus of the night That floods the gloom with fragrance and with light?

How can we praise the verse whose music flows With solemn cadence and majestic close, Pure as the dew that filters through the rose?

How shall we thank him that in evil days He faltered never,--nor for blame, nor praise, Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier lays?

But as his boyhood was of manliest hue, So to his youth his manly years were true, All dyed in royal purple through and through!

He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is strung Needs not the flattering toil of mortal tongue Let not the singer grieve to die unsung!

Marbles forget their message to mankind: In his own verse the poet still we find, In his own page his memory lives enshrined,

As in their amber sweets the smothered bees,-- As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees.

Poets, like youngest children, never grow Out of their mother's fondness. Nature so Holds their soft hands, and will not let them go,

Till at the last they track with even feet Her rhythmic footsteps, and their pulses beat Twinned with her pulses, and their lips repeat.

The secrets she has told them, as their own Thus is the inmost soul of Nature known, And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne!

O lover of her mountains and her woods, Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudes, Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudes,

Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred fire Far be the day that claims thy sounding lyre To join the music of the angel choir!

Yet, since life's amplest measure must be filled, Since throbbing hearts must be forever stilled, And all must fade that evening sunsets gild,

Grant, Father, ere he close the mortal eyes That see a Nation's reeking sacrifice, Its smoke may vanish from these blackened skies!

Then, when his summons comes, since come it must, And, looking heavenward with unfaltering trust, He wraps his drapery round him for the dust,

His last fond glance will show him o'er his head The Northern fires beyond the zenith spread In lambent glory, blue and white and red,--

The Southern cross without its bleeding load, The milky way of peace all freshly strowed, And every white-throned star fixed in its lost abode!

A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ

How the mountains talked together, Looking down upon the weather, When they heard our friend had planned his Little trip among the Andes! How they'll bare their snowy scalps To the climber of the Alps When the cry goes through their passes, "Here comes the great Agassiz!" "Yes, I'm tall," says Chimborazo, "But I wait for him to say so,-- That's the only thing that lacks,--he Must see me, Cotopaxi!" "Ay! ay!" the fire-peak thunders, "And he must view my wonders! I'm but a lonely crater Till I have him for spectator!" The mountain hearts are yearning, The lava-torches burning, The rivers bend to meet him, The forests bow to greet him, It thrills the spinal column Of fossil fishes solemn, And glaciers crawl the faster To the feet of their old master! Heaven keep him well and hearty, Both him and all his party! From the sun that broils and smites, From the centipede that bites, From the hail-storm and the thunder, From the vampire and the condor, From the gust upon the river, From the sudden earthquake shiver, From the trip of mule or donkey, From the midnight howling monkey, From the stroke of knife or dagger, From the puma and the jaguar, From the horrid boa-constrictor That has scared us in the pictur', From the Indians of the Pampas Who would dine upon their grampas, From every beast and vermin That to think of sets us squirmin', From every snake that tries on The traveller his p'ison, From every pest of Natur', Likewise the alligator, And from two things left behind him,-- (Be sure they'll try to find him,) The tax-bill and assessor,-- Heaven keep the great Professor May he find, with his apostles, That the land is full of fossils, That the waters swarm with fishes Shaped according to his wishes, That every pool is fertile In fancy kinds of turtle, New birds around him singing, New insects, never stinging, With a million novel data About the articulata, And facts that strip off all husks From the history of mollusks. And when, with loud Te Deum, He returns to his Museum, May he find the monstrous reptile That so long the land has kept ill By Grant and Sherman throttled, And by Father Abraham bottled, (All specked and streaked and mottled With the scars of murderous battles, Where he clashed the iron rattles That gods and men he shook at,) For all the world to look at.

God bless the great Professor! And Madam, too, God bless her! Bless him and all his band, On the sea and on the land, Bless them head and heart and hand, Till their glorious raid is o'er, And they touch our ransomed shore! Then the welcome of a nation, With its shout of exultation, Shall awake the dumb creation, And the shapes of buried aeons Join the living creatures' poeans, Till the fossil echoes roar; While the mighty megalosaurus Leads the palaeozoic chorus,-- God bless the great Professor, And the land his proud possessor,-- Bless them now and evermore!

1865.

AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT

JULY 6, 1865

Now, smiling friends and shipmates all, Since half our battle 's won, A broadside for our Admiral! Load every crystal gun Stand ready till I give the word,-- You won't have time to tire,-- And when that glorious name is heard, Then hip! hurrah! and fire!

Bow foremost sinks the rebel craft,-- Our eyes not sadly turn And see the pirates huddling aft To drop their raft astern; Soon o'er the sea-worm's destined prey The lifted wave shall close,-- So perish from the face of day All Freedom's banded foes!

But ah! what splendors fire the sky What glories greet the morn! The storm-tost banner streams on high, Its heavenly hues new-born! Its red fresh dyed in heroes' blood, Its peaceful white more pure, To float unstained o'er field and flood While earth and seas endure!

All shapes before the driving blast Must glide from mortal view; Black roll the billows of the past Behind the present's blue, Fast, fast, are lessening in the light The names of high renown,-- Van Tromp's proud besom fades from sight, And Nelson's half hull down!

Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea Or skirts the safer shores Of all that bore to victory Our stout old commodores; Hull, Bainbridge, Porter,--where are they? The waves their answer roll, "Still bright in memory's sunset ray,-- God rest each gallant soul!"

A brighter name must dim their light With more than noontide ray, The Sea-King of the "River Fight," The Conqueror of the Bay,-- Now then the broadside! cheer on cheer To greet him safe on shore! Health, peace, and many a bloodless year To fight his battles o'er!

AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT

JULY 31, 1865

WHEN treason first began the strife That crimsoned sea and shore, The Nation poured her hoarded life On Freedom's threshing-floor; From field and prairie, east and west, From coast and hill and plain, The sheaves of ripening manhood pressed Thick as the bearded grain.

Rich was the harvest; souls as true As ever battle tried; But fiercer still the conflict grew, The floor of death more wide; Ah, who forgets that dreadful day Whose blot of grief and shame Four bitter years scarce wash away In seas of blood and flame?

Vain, vain the Nation's lofty boasts,-- Vain all her sacrifice! "Give me a man to lead my hosts, O God in heaven!" she cries. While Battle whirls his crushing flail, And plies his winnowing fan,-- Thick flies the chaff on every gale,-- She cannot find her man!

Bravely they fought who failed to win,-- Our leaders battle-scarred,-- Fighting the hosts of hell and sin, But devils die always hard! Blame not the broken tools of God That helped our sorest needs; Through paths that martyr feet have trod The conqueror's steps He leads.

But now the heavens grow black with doubt, The ravens fill the sky, "Friends" plot within, foes storm without, Hark,--that despairing cry, "Where is the heart, the hand, the brain To dare, to do, to plan?" The bleeding Nation shrieks in vain,-- She has not found her man!

A little echo stirs the air,-- Some tale, whate'er it be, Of rebels routed in their lair Along the Tennessee. The little echo spreads and grows, And soon the trump of Fame Has taught the Nation's friends and foes The "man on horseback"'s name.

So well his warlike wooing sped, No fortress might resist His billets-doux of lisping lead, The bayonets in his fist,-- With kisses from his cannons' mouth He made his passion known Till Vicksburg, vestal of the South, Unbound her virgin zone.

And still where'er his banners led He conquered as he came, The trembling hosts of treason fled Before his breath of flame, And Fame's still gathering echoes grew Till high o'er Richmond's towers The starry fold of Freedom flew, And all the land was ours.

Welcome from fields where valor fought To feasts where pleasure waits; A Nation gives you smiles unbought At all her opening gates! Forgive us when we press your hand,-- Your war-worn features scan,-- God sent you to a bleeding land; Our Nation found its man!

TO H. W. LONGFELLOW

BEFORE HIS DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE, MAY 27, 1868

OUR Poet, who has taught the Western breeze To waft his songs before him o'er the seas, Will find them wheresoe'er his wanderings reach Borne on the spreading tide of English speech Twin with the rhythmic waves that kiss the farthest beach.

Where shall the singing bird a stranger be That finds a nest for him in every tree? How shall he travel who can never go Where his own voice the echoes do not know, Where his own garden flowers no longer learn to grow?

Ah! gentlest soul! how gracious, how benign Breathes through our troubled life that voice of thine, Filled with a sweetness born of happier spheres, That wins and warms, that kindles, softens, cheers, That calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears!

Forgive the simple words that sound like praise; The mist before me dims my gilded phrase; Our speech at best is half alive and cold, And save that tenderer moments make us bold Our whitening lips would close, their truest truth untold.

We who behold our autumn sun below The Scorpion's sign, against the Archer's bow, Know well what parting means of friend from friend; After the snows no freshening dews descend, And what the frost has marred, the sunshine will not mend.

So we all count the months, the weeks, the days, That keep thee from us in unwonted ways, Grudging to alien hearths our widowed time; And one has shaped a breath in artless rhyme That sighs, "We track thee still through each remotest clime."

What wishes, longings, blessings, prayers shall be The more than golden freight that floats with thee! And know, whatever welcome thou shalt find,-- Thou who hast won the hearts of half mankind,-- The proudest, fondest love thou leavest still behind!

TO CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG

FOR HIS "JUBILAEUM" AT BERLIN, NOVEMBER 5, 1868

This poem was written at the suggestion of Mr. George Bancroft, the historian.

THOU who hast taught the teachers of mankind How from the least of things the mightiest grow, What marvel jealous Nature made thee blind, Lest man should learn what angels long to know? Thou in the flinty rock, the river's flow, In the thick-moted sunbeam's sifted light Hast trained thy downward-pointed tube to show Worlds within worlds unveiled to mortal sight, Even as the patient watchers of the night,-- The cyclope gleaners of the fruitful skies,-- Show the wide misty way where heaven is white All paved with suns that daze our wondering eyes.

Far o'er the stormy deep an empire lies, Beyond the storied islands of the blest, That waits to see the lingering day-star rise; The forest-tinctured Eden of the West; Whose queen, fair Freedom, twines her iron crest With leaves from every wreath that mortals wear, But loves the sober garland ever best That science lends the sage's silvered hair;-- Science, who makes life's heritage more fair, Forging for every lock its mastering key, Filling with life and hope the stagnant air, Pouring the light of Heaven o'er land and sea! From her unsceptred realm we come to thee, Bearing our slender tribute in our hands; Deem it not worthless, humble though it be, Set by the larger gifts of older lands The smallest fibres weave the strongest bands,-- In narrowest tubes the sovereign nerves are spun,-- A little cord along the deep sea-sands Makes the live thought of severed nations one Thy fame has journeyed westering with the sun, Prairies and lone sierras know thy name And the long day of service nobly done That crowns thy darkened evening with its flame!

One with the grateful world, we own thy claim,-- Nay, rather claim our right to join the throng Who come with varied tongues, but hearts the same, To hail thy festal morn with smiles and song; Ah, happy they to whom the joys belong Of peaceful triumphs that can never die From History's record,--not of gilded wrong, But golden truths that, while the world goes by With all its empty pageant, blazoned high Around the Master's name forever shine So shines thy name illumined in the sky,-- Such joys, such triumphs, such remembrance thine!

A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS

FEBRUARY 16, 1874

THE painter's and the poet's fame Shed their twinned lustre round his name, To gild our story-teller's art, Where each in turn must play his part.

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.