Not as when some great Captain falls
In battle, where his Country calls,
Beyond the struggling
lines
That push his dread designs
To doom, by some
stray ball struck dead:
Or, in the last charge, at the
head
Of his determined men,
Who must be victors then!
Nor as when sink the civic Great,
The safer pillars
of the State,
Whose calm, mature, wise words
Suppress
the need of swords�
With no such tears as e'er were
shed
Above the noblest of our Dead
Do we to-day
deplore
The Man that is no more!
Our sorrow hath a
wider scope,
Too strange for fear, too vast for hope,�
A Wonder, blind and dumb,
That waits�what is to come!
Not more astounded had we been
If Madness, that dark
night, unseen,
Had in our chambers crept,
And murdered
while we slept!
We woke to find a mourning Earth�
Our Lares shivered on the hearth,�
The roof-tree
fallen,�all
That could affright, appall!
Such
thunderbolts, in other lands,
Have smitten the rod from
royal hands,
But spared, with us, till now,
Each
laurelled Cesar's brow!
No Cesar he, whom we lament,
A Man without a precedent,
Sent, it would see, to do
His work�and perish too!
Not by the weary cares of
State,
The endless tasks, which will not wait,
Which,
often done in vain,
Must yet be done again:
Not in
the dark, wild tide of War,
Which rose so high, and
rolled so far,
Sweeping from sea to sea
In awful
anarchy:�
Four fateful years of mortal strife,
Which slowly drained the Nation's life,
(Yet, for each
drop that ran
There sprang an armed man!)
Not
then;�but when by measures meet,�
By victory, and by
defeat,�
By courage, patience, skill,
The People's
fixed "We will!"
Had pierced, had crushed Rebellion
dead,�
Without a Hand, without a Head:�
At last, when
all was well,
He fell�O, how he fell!
The
time,�the place,�the stealing Shape,�
The coward
shot,�the swift escape,�
The wife�the widow's scream,�
It is a hideous Dream!
A Dream?�what means this
pageant, then?
These multitudes of solemn men,
Who
speak not when they meet,
But throng the silent street?
The flags half-mast, that late so high
Flaunted at
each new victory?
(The stars no brightness shed,
But
bloody looks the red!)
The black festoons that
stretch for miles,
And turn the streets to funeral
aisles?
(No house too poor to show
The Nation's badge
of woe!)
The cannon's sudden, sullen boom,�
The
bells that toll of death and doom,�
The rolling of the
drums,�
The dreadful Car that comes?
Cursed be the
hand that fired the shot!
The frenzied brain that hatched
the plot!
Thy Country's Father slain
By thee, thou
worse than Cain!
Tyrants have fallen by such as thou,
And Good hath followed�May it now!
(God lets bad
instruments
Produce the best events.)
But he, the
Man we mourn to-day,
No tyrant was: so mild a sway
In
one such weight who bore
Was never known before!
Cool should he be, of balanced powers,
The Ruler of a
Race like ours,
Impatient, headstrong, wild,�
The Man
to guide the Child!
And this he was, who most unfit
(So hard the sense of God to hit!)
Did seem to fill his
Place.
With such a homely face,�
Such rustic
manners,�speech uncouth,�
(That somehow blundered out the
Truth!)
Untried, untrained to bear
The more than
kingly Care?
Ay! And his genius put to scorn
The
proudest in the purple born,
Whose wisdom never grew
To what, untaught, he knew�
The People, of whom he
was one.
No gentleman like Washington,�
(Whose bones,
methinks, make room,
To have him in their tomb!)
A
laboring man, with horny hands,
Who swung the axe, who
tilled his lands,
Who shrank from nothing new,
But did
as poor men do!
One of the People! Born to be
Their curious Epitome;
To share, yet rise above
Their
shifting hate and love.
Common his mind (it seemed so
then),
His thoughts the thoughts of other men:
Plain
were his words, and poor�
But now they will endure!
No hasty fool, of stubborn will,
But prudent,
cautious, pliant, still;
Who, since his work was good,
Would do it, as he could.
Doubting, was not ashamed
to doubt,
And, lacking prescience, went without:
Often
appeared to halt,
And was, of course, at fault:
Heard all opinions, nothing loth,
And loving both sides,
angered both:
Was�not like Justice, blind,
But
watchful, clement, kind.
No hero, this, of Roman
mould;
Nor like our stately sires of old:
Perhaps he
was not Great�
But he preserved the State!
O
honest face, which all men knew!
O tender heart, but
known to few!
O Wonder of the Age,
Cut off by tragic
Rage!
Peace! Let the long procession come,
For
hark!�the mournful, muffled drum�
The trumpet's wail
afar,�
And see! the awful Car!
Peace! Let the sad
procession go,
While cannon boom, and bells toll slow:
And go, thou sacred Car,
Bearing our Woe afar!
Go,
darkly borne, from State to State,
Whose loyal, sorrowing
Cities wait
To honor all they can
The dust of that
Good Man!
Go, grandly borne, with such a train
As
greatest kings might die to gain:
The Just, the Wise, the
Brave
Attend thee to the grave!
And you, the
soldiers of our wars,
Bronzed veterans, grim with noble
scars,
Salute him once again,
Your late
Commander�slain!
Yes, let your tears, indignant,
fall,
But leave your muskets on the wall:
Your Country
needs you now
Beside the forge, the plough!
(When
Justice shall unsheathe her brand,�
If Mercy may not stay
her hand,
Nor would we have it so�
She must direct the
blow!)
And you, amid the Master-Race,
Who seem so
strangely out of place,
Know ye who cometh? He
Who
hath declared ye Free!
Bow while the Body passes�Nay,
Fall on your knees, and weep, and pray!
Weep, weep�I
would ye might�
Your poor, black faces white!
And,
Children, you must come in bands,
With garlands in your
little hands,
Of blue, and white, and red,
To strew
before the Dead!
So, sweetly, sadly, sternly goes
The Fallen to his last repose:
Beneath no mighty dome,
But in his modest Home;
The churchyard where his
children rest,
The quiet spot that suits him best:
There shall his grave be made,
And there his bones be
laid!
And there his countrymen shall come,
With
memory proud, with pity dumb,
And strangers far and near,
For many and many a year!
For many a year, and many
an Age,
While History on her ample page
The virtues
shall enroll
Of that Paternal Soul! |
