And thou art gone, most loved, most honored friend!
No, nevermore thy gentle voice shall blend
With air of Earth its pure ideal tones,
Binding in one, as with harmonious zones,
The heart and intellect. And I no more
Shall with thee gaze on that unfathomed deep,
The Human Soul,—as when, pushed off the shore,
Thy mystic bark would through...
-
-
The quarry whence thy form majestic sprung
Has peopled earth with grace,
Heroes and gods that elder bards have sung,
A bright and peerless race;
But from its sleeping veins ne’er rose before
A shape of loftier name
Than his, who Glory’s wreath with meekness wore,
The noblest son of Fame.
Sheathed is the sword that... -
This was the man God gave us when the hour
Proclaimed the dawn of Liberty begun;
Who dared a deed, and died when it was done
Patient in triumph, temperate in power,—
Not striving like the Corsican to tower
To heaven, nor like great Philip’s greater son
To win the world and weep for worlds unwon,
Or lose the star to revel in the flower.... -
By broad Potomac’s silent shore
Better than Trajan lowly lies,
Gilding her green declivities
With glory now and evermore;
Art to his fame no aid hath lent;
His country is his monument. -
[From “Under the Elm,” read at Cambridge, July 3, 1875, on the Hundredth Anniversary of Washington’s taking Command of the American Army.]
BENEATH our consecrated elm
A century ago he stood,
Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood,
Which redly foamèd round him but could not overwhelm
The life foredoomed to wield our rough-hewn helm.
From... -
It is not the fear of death
That damps my brow;
It is not for another breath
I ask thee now;
I can die with lip unstirr'd
And a quiet heart—
Let but this prayer be heard
Ere I depart.
I can give up my mother's look—
My sister's kiss;
I can...O, pour upon my soul again
That sad, unearthly strain,
That seems from other worlds to plain;
Thus falling, falling from afar,
As if some melancholy star
Had mingled with her light her sighs,
And dropped them from the skies.
No - never came from aught below
This...More proudly on thy winding course,
Dark Alleghany! flow;
The noblest burden thou couldst bear
Is on thy waters now.
But calm be every turbid wave,
And hushed be wind and storm:
There lies a Nation's destiny
...