"Coscienza fusca O della propria o dell' altrui vergogna If I let fall a word of bitter mirth When public shames more shameful pardon won, If small, yet faithful, deemed of little worth: Through veins that drew their life from Western earth In no polluted course from sire to son; As honor would, nor lightly to dethrone With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow. THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. ΤΟ E. L. GODKIN, IN CORDIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS EMINENT SERVICE IN HEIGHTENING AND PURIFYING THE TONE OF OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT, ARE DEDICATED. Readers, it is hoped, will remember that, by his Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, the author had precluded himself from many of the natural outlets of thought and feeling common to such occasions as are celebrated in these poems. ODE READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE. 19TH APRIL, 1875. I. WHO Cometh over the hills, The daughters of Time and Thought! II. She cometh, cometh to-day: III. Tell me, young men, have ye seen, Creature of diviner mien For true hearts to long and cry for, Manly hearts to live and die for? What hath she that others want? Brows that all endearments haunt, Eyes that make it sweet to dare, Smiles that cheer untimely death Looks that fortify despair, Tones more brave than trumpet's breath; Younger heart with wit full grown? IV. Whiter than moonshine upon snow Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw; Yet fresh, nor looked on with untearful eyes. V. Our fathers found her in the woods They met her here, not recognized, Nor dreamed what destinies were hers: She taught them bee-like to create Their simpler forms of Church and State; She taught them to endue The past with other functions than it knew, And turn in channels strange the uncertain stream of Fate; Better than all, she fenced them in their need With iron-handed Duty's sternest creed, 'Gainst Self's lean wolf that ravens word and deed. VI. Why cometh she hither to-day Why cometh she? She was not far away. Who did great things, unconscious they were great. They dreamed not what a die was cast With that first answering shot; what then? There was their duty; they were men Schooled the soul's inward gospel to obey, Though leading to the lion's den. They felt the habit-hallowed world give way Beneath their lives, and on went they, Unhappy who was last. When Buttrick gave the word, That awful idol of the unchallenged Past, Strong in their love, and in their lineage VII. Think you these felt no charms In their gray homesteads and embowered farms? In household faces waiting at the door Their evening step should lighten up no more ? In fields their boyish feet had known? In trees their fathers' hands had set, And which with them had grown, Widening each year their leafy coronet? Felt they no pang of passionate regret For those unsolid goods that seem so much our own? These things are dear to every man that lives, And life prized more for what it lends than gives. Yea, many a tie, through iteration sweet, Strove to detain their fatal feet; And yet the enduring half they chose, Whose choice decides a man life's slave Maiden half mortal, half divine, We triumphed in thy coming; to the brinks Our hearts were filled with pride's tu multuous wine; Better to-day who rather feels than thinks. Yet will some graver thoughts intrude, And cares of sterner mood; They won thee: who shall keep thee? From the deeps Where discrowned empires o'er their ruins brood, And many a thwarted hope wrings its weak hands and weeps, I hear the voice as of a mighty wind From all heaven's caverns rushing unconfined, "I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge : I abide The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor sleep: Be therefore timely wise, Nor laugh when this one steals, and that one lies, As if your luck could cheat those sleepless spies, Till the deaf Fury comes your house to sweep!" I hear the voice, and unaffrighted bow; Or on the left your hoarse forebodings croak From many a blasted bough On Yggdrasil's storm-sinewed oak, That once was green, Hope of the West, as thou: Yet pardon if I tremble while I boast; For I have loved as those who pardon most. X. Away, ungrateful doubt, away! Stay with us! Yes, thou shalt stay, Not to be courted in play, Not to be kept without pain. Our grosser minds need this terrestrial hint To raise long-buried days from tombs of print: "Here stood he," softly we repeat, Feels in its frozen veins our pulses thrill, Breathes living air and mocks at Death's deceit. It warms, it stirs, comes down to us at last, Its features human with familiar light, A man, beyond the historian's art to kill, Or sculptor's to efface with patient chiselblight. 3. Sure the dumb earth hath memory, nor for naught Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted loom Present and Past commingle, fruit and bloom Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought Learn that high natures over Time prevail, And feel ourselves a link in that entail That binds all ages past with all that are to be. III. 1. BENEATH our consecrated elm Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm The life foredoomed to wield our roughhewn helm: From colleges, where now the gown to see The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he. No need to question long; close-lipped and tall, Long trained in murder-brooding forests lone To bridle others' clamors and his own, Firmly erect, he towered above them all, The incarnate discipline that was to free With iron curb that armed democracy. 2. A motley rout was that which came to stare, In raiment tanned by years of sun and storm, Of every shape that was not uniform, Dotted with regimentals here and there; An army all of captains, used to pray And stiff in fight, but serious drill's despair, Skilled to debate their orders, not obey: Deacons were there, selectmen, men of note In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round with woods, Ready to settle Freewill by a vote, pen, Or ruder arms, their rights as English |