THE FIRST AMERICAN-[Continued]

For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast

Of the unexhausted West,

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see

Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth,

But by his clear-grained human worth,

And brave old wisdom of sincerity!

They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust

In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will

That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.

His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapours blind;
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
Yet, also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here,

Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of Serf and Peer

Could Nature's equal scheme deface

THE FIRST AMERICAN-[Continued]

And thwart her genial will;

Here was a type of the true elder race,

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not; it were too late;

And some innative weakness there must be

In him who condescends to victory

Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,

Safe in himself as in a fate.

So always firmly he:

He knew to bide his time,

And can his fame abide,

Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
Till the wise years decide.

Great captains with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,

But at last silence comes;

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,
Our children shall behold his fame.

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

From Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865.

W

LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE

HEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour,

Threatening and darkening as it hurried on, She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down To make a man to meet the mighty need. She took the tried clay of the common road, Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; Tempered the heap with touch of mortal tears, Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.

The colour of the ground was in him, the red earth, The tang and odour of the primal things—

The rectitude and patience of the rocks;

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;
The courage of the bird that dares the sea;
The justice of the rain that loves all leaves;
The pity of the snow that hides all scars;
The loving-kindness of the wayside well;
The tolerance and equity of light

That gives as freely to the shrinking weed
As to the great oak flaring to the wind-
To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn
That shoulders out the sky.