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;
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 there his countrymen shall come,
With memory proud, with pity dumb, 190
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
On that Paternal Soul.
There came a Woman in the night, When winds were whist, and moonlight smiled,
Where in his mother's arms, who slept,
There lay a new-born child.
She gazed at him with loving looks,
And while her hand upon his head
She laid, in blessing and in power,
In slow, deep words she said:
"This child is mine. Of all my sons
Are none like what the lad shall be; Though these are wise, and those are strong,
And all are dear to me.
Beyond their arts of peace and war
The gift that unto him belongs,
To see my face, to read my thoughts,
To learn my silent songs.
The elder sisters of my race
Shall taunt no more that I am dumb;
Hereafter I shall sing through him,
In ages yet to come."
She stooped, and kissed his baby mouth,
Whence came a breath of melody,
As from the closed leaves of a rose
The murmur of a bee.
Sometimes he caught a transient glimpse
Of her broad robe, that swept before,
Deep in the heart of ancient woods,
Or by the sounding shore.
One prosperous day he chanced to see
(Be sure 't was in a lonely place)
Her glance of pride, that sought his own,
At last her noble face.
Not as it fronts her children now,
With clouded brows, and looks of ire, And eyes that would be blind with tears But for their quenchless fire!
But happy, gracious, beautiful,
And more imperial than a queen;
A Woman of majestic mould,
And most maternal mien.
By rock-ribbed hills, and pensive vales
That stretch in light and shade between,
And by the soft-complaining brooks
That make the meadows green:
He felt her presence everywhere,
To-day was glad, to-morrow grave;
And what she gave to him in thought,
To us in song he gave:
In stately songs, in solemn hymns,
(Few are so clear, and none so high,) 70
That mirrored her, in calm and storm,
As mountain lakes the sky.
And evermore one shape appeared,
To comfort now, and now command,
A bearded Man, with many scars,
Who bore a battle-brand.
And she was filled with serious joy,
To know her poet followed him;
Not losing heart, nor bating hope,
When others' faith was dim.
And as the years went slowly by,
And she grew stronger and more wise, Stretching her hands o'er broader lands, And grander destinies;
And he, our poet, poured his hymns,
Serene, prophetic, sad, as each
Became a part of her renown,
And of his native speech;
She wove, by turns, a wreath for him,
The business of her idle hours;
And here were sprigs of mountain pine,
And there were prairie flowers.
And now, even in her sorest need,
Pale, bleeding, faint in every limb,
She still remembers what he is,
And comes to honor him.
For hers, not ours, the songs we bring,
The flowers, the music and the light;
And 't is her hand that lays the wreath
On his gray head to-night!
Not what we would, but what we must,
Makes up the sum of living;
Heaven is both more and less than just
In taking and in giving.
Swords cleave to hands that sought the plough,
And laurels miss the soldier's brow.
Me, whom the city holds, whose feet
Have worn its stony highways,
Familiar with its loneliest street-
Its ways were never my ways.
My cradle was beside the sea,
And there, I hope, my grave will be.
Old homestead! In that old, gray town,
Thy vane is seaward blowing,
Thy slip of garden stretches down
To where the tide is flowing:
Below they lie, their sails all furled,
The ships that go about the world.
Dearer that little country house,
Inland, with pines beside it;
Some peach-trees, with unfruitful boughs,
A well, with weeds to hide it:
No flowers, or only such as rise
Self-sown, poor things, which all despise.
Dear country home! Can I forget
The least of thy sweet trifles?
The window-vines that clamber yet,
Whose blooms the bee still rifles?
The roadside blackberries, growing ripe,
And in the woods the Indian Pipe?
Happy the man who tills his field,
Content with rustic labor;
Earth does to him her fulness yield,
Hap what may to his neighbor.
Well days, sound nights, O can there be A life more rational and free?
It makes no difference if we see
The same things for a hundred years,
Or for a million. They are here.
Who longest lives, who shortest dies, Loses the same sweet earth and skies, For they remain-we disappear.
"TO BEAR WHAT IS, TO BE.
RESIGNED"
To bear what is, to be resigned,
The mark is of a noble mind.
Stir not thy hand, or foot, or heart,
Be not disturbed, for Destiny
Is more attached, O man, to thee
Than to thyself thou art!
If patience had but been thy guest,
Thy destined portion would have come,
And like a lover on thy breast
Have flung itself, and kissed thee dumb!
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