To John Greenleaf Whittier
By William Hayes
Ward (1835-1916) |
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DEAR singer of our fathers' day,
Who
lingerest in the sunset glow,
Our grateful hearts all bid
thee stay;
Bend hitherward and do not go.
Gracious
thine age, thy youth was strong,
For Freedom touched thy
tongue with fire:
To sing the right and fight the wrong
Thine equal hand held bow or lyre.
O linger,
linger long,
Singer of song.
We beg thee stay; thy
comrade star
Which later rose is earlier set;
What
music and what battle-scar
When side by side the fray ye
met!
Thy trumpet and his drum and fife
Gave saucy
challenge to the foe
In Liberty's heroic strife;
We
mourn for him, thou must not go!
Yet linger, linger long,
Singer of song.
We cannot yield thee; only thou
Art left to us, and one beside
Whose silvered wisdom
still can show
How smiles and tears together bide.
And
we would bring our boys to thee,
And bid them hold in
memory crowned
That they our saintliest bard did see,
The Galahad of our table round.
Then linger, linger long,
Singer of song.
The night is dark; three radiant
beams
Are gone that crossed the zenith sky;
For one
the water-fowl, meseems,
For two the Elmwood herons cry.
Ye twain that early rose and still
Skirt low the level
west along,
Sink when ye must, to rise and fill
The
morrow's east with light and song
But linger, linger
long,
Singer of song. |
By William Hayes
Ward (1835-1916)
Listed April 11, 2013
This poem honors Charles Russell Lowell, Jr. a young (29)
Union Army General in the American Civil War, who was
mortally wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek and mourned
by a number of leading generals.
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