LOWELL

Yet on this day of doom a strange new splendor
Shed its celestial light on all men's eyes:

Flower of the hero-soul,- consummate, tender,

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That from the tower of flame sprang to the eternal skies.

LOWELL

I

FROM the shade of the elms that murmured above thy birth

And the pines that sheltered thy life and shadowed the

end,

'Neath the white-blue skies thee to thy rest we bore,'Neath the summer skies thou didst love, 'mid the songs of thy birds,

By thy childhood's stream, 'neath the grass and the flowers thou knewest,

Near the grave of the singer whose name with thine own is enlaureled,

By the side of the brave who live in thy deathless song, Here all that was mortal of thee we left, with our tears, With our love, and our grief that could not be quenched or abated;

For even the part that was mortal, sweet friend and companion!

That face, and that figure of beauty, and flashing eye Which in youth shone forth like a god's 'mid lesser men, And in gray-haired, strenuous age still glowed and lus

tered,

These, too, were dear to us,-blame us not, soaring spirit! These, too, were dear, and now we shall never behold

them,

Nor ever shall feel the quick clasp of thy welcoming hand.

II

But not for ourselves alone are we spent in grieving, For the stricken Land we mourn whose light is darkened, Whose soul in sorrow went forth in the night-time with thine.

Lover and laureate thou of the wide New World,

Whose pines, and prairies, and people, and teeming soil, Where was shaken of old the seed of the freedom of men, Thou didst love as a strong man loveth the maiden he

Not the woman he toys with, and sings to, and, passing, forgets,

Whom he woos, whom he wins, whom he weds; his passion, his pride;

Who no shadow of wrong shall suffer, who shall stand in

his sight

Pure as the sky of the evil her foeman may threat,
Save by word or by thought of her own in her whiteness

untouched

And wounded alone of the lightning her spirit engenders.

III

Take of thy grief new strength, new life, O Land!

Weep no more he is lost, but rejoice and be glad forever That thy lover who died was born, for thy pleasure, thy

glory

While his love and his fame light ever thy climbing path. August 14, 1891.

THE SILENCE OF TENNYSON

WHEN that great shade into the silence vast
Through thinking silence past;

When he, our century's soul and voice, was husht,

A HERO OF PEACE

We who, - appalled, bowed, crusht,—
Within the holy moonlight of his death

Waited the parting breath;

Ah, not in song

Might we our grief prolong.

Silence alone, O golden spirit fled!

Silence alone could mourn that silence dread.

ON THE DEATH OF A GREAT MAN

PHILLIPS BROOKS

WHEN from this mortal scene

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A great soul passes to the vast unknown,
Let not in hopeless grief the spirit groan.
Death comes to all, the mighty and the mean.
If by that death the whole world suffer loss,
This be the proof (and lighter thus our cross),
That he for whom the world doth sorely grieve
Greatly hath blessed mankind in that he once did live.
Then, at the parting breath

Let men praise Life, nor idly blame dark Death.

A HERO OF PEACE

IN MEMORY OF ROBERT ROSS: SHOT MARCH 6, 1894 "No bugle on the blast

Calls warriors face to face;
Grim battle being forever past,
Gone is the hero-race."

Ah, no! there is no peace!

If liberty shall live,

Never may freemen dare to cease

Their love, their life to give.

Unto the patriot's heart

The silent summons comes;
Not braver he who does his part
To the sound of beating drums.

And thou who gavest youth,
And life, and all most dear;
Sweet soul, impassionate of truth,
White on thy murdered bier!

Thy deed, thy date, thy name

Are wreathed with deathless flowers.
Thy fate shall be the guiding flame
That lights to nobler hours.

WASHINGTON AT TRENTON

THE BATTLE MONUMENT, OCTOBER 19, 1893

SINCE ancient Time began,

Ever on some great soul God laid an infinite burden The weight of all this world, the hopes of man.

Conflict and pain, and fame immortal are his guerdon!

And this the unfaltering token

Of him, the Deliverer what tho' tempests beat, Tho' all else fail, tho' bravest ranks be broken,

He stands unscared, alone, nor ever knows defeat.

Such was that man of men;

And if are praised all virtues, every fame

Most noble, highest, purest - then, ah! then,

Upleaps in every heart the name none needs to name.

Ye who defeated, 'whelmed,

Betray the sacred cause, let go the trust;

A MONUMENT BY SAINT-GAUDENS

Sleep, weary, while the vessel drifts unhelmed;
Here see in triumph rise the hero from the dust!

All ye who fight forlorn

'Gainst fate and failure; ye who proudly cope With evil high enthroned; all ye who scorn

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Life from Dishonor's hand, here take new heart of hope.

Here know how Victory borrows

For the brave soul a front as of disaster,

And from the bannered East what glorious morrows For all the blackness of the night speed surer, faster.

Know by this pillared sign

For what brief while the powers of earth and hell Can war against the spirit of truth divine,

Or can against the heroic heart of man prevail.

FAME

FAME is an honest thing,

It is deceived not;

It passes by the palace gates
Where the crowned usurper waits,
Enters the peasant-poet's cot

And cries: "Thou art the king!"

A MONUMENT BY SAINT-GAUDENS

THIS is not Death, nor Sorrow, nor sad Hope; Nor Rest that follows strife. But, O, more dread! 'Tis Life, for all its agony serene;

Immortal, and unmournful, and content.