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 vapor's blind; Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of lofti

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 Ameri

cau.

VII

Long as man's hope insatiate can discern Or only guess some more inspiring goal Outside of Self, enduring as the pole, Along whose course the flying axles burn Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood;

Long as below we cannot find The meed that stills the inexorable mind; So long this faith to some ideal Good, Under whatever mortal names it masks, Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks,

Feeling its challenged pulses leap, While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks,

Shall win man's praise and woman's love, Shall be a wisdom that we set above All other skills and gifts to culture dear, A virtue round whose forehead we inwreathe

Laurels that with a living passion breathe When other crowns grow, while we twine them, scar.

What brings us thronging these high rites to pay,

And seal these hours the noblest of our year,

Save that our brothers found this better way?

I strive to mix some gladness with my strain,

But the sad strings complain,
And will not please the ear:

I sweep them for a pean, but they wane
Again and yet again

Into a dirge, and die away, in pain.
In these brave ranks I only see the gaps,
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf
wraps,

Dark to the triumph which they died to gain:

Fitlier may others greet the living,
For me the past is unforgiving;
I with uncovered head
Salute the sacred dead,

Who went, and who return not.

so!

Say not

'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the

way;

Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave;

No bar of endless night exiles the brave;
And to the saner mind

We rather seem the dead that stayed behind.

Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! | For never shall their aurcoled presence lack:

I see them muster in a gleaming row,
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show;
We find in our dull road their shining
track;

In every nobler mood
We feel the orient of their spirit glow,
Part of our life's unalterable good,
Of all our saintlier aspiration;

They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted

As noisy once as we; poor ghosts of kings,
Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust,
And many races, nameless long ago,
To darkness driven by that imperious gust
Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow:
O visionary world, condition strange,
Where naught abiding is but only Change,
Where the deep-bolted stars themselves
still shift and range!

Shall we to more continuance make pretence?

Renown builds tombs; a life-estate is Wit; And, bit by bit,

The cunning years steal all from us but woc;

Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest

Such short-lived service, as if blind events Ruled without her, or earth could so endure;

She claims a more divine investiture
Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents;
Whate'er she touches doth her nature
share;

Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air,
Gives eyes to mountains blind,
Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind,
And her clear trump sings succor every-
where

By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind;
For soul inherits all that soul could dare:

Yea, Manhood hath a wider spau And larger privilege of life than man. The single deed, the private sacrifice, So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears,

Is covered up crelong from mortal eyes With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years;

But that high privilege that makes all men

Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, Of being set on flame

By the pure fire that flies all contact base
But wraps its chosen with angelic might,
These are imperishable gains,

Sure as the sun, medicinal as light,
These hold great futures in their lusty reins
And certify to earth a new imperial race.

X

Who now shall sncer?
Who dare again to say we trace
Our lines to a plebeian race?
Roundhead and Cavalier!

Dumb are those names erewhile in battle

loud;

Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud,

They flit across the ear:

That is best blood that hath most iron in 't
To edge resolve with, pouring without stint
For what makes manhood dear.
Tell us not of Plantagenets,
Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods
crawl

Down from some victor in a border-brawl !

How poor their outworn coronets, Matched with one leaf of that plain civic A. wreath

Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears With vain resentments and more vain regrets!

XI

Not in anger, not in pride,
Pure from passion's mixture rude
Ever to base earth allied,

But with far-heard gratitude,
Still with heart and voice renewed,
To heroes living and dear martyrs dead,
The strain should close that consecrates
our brave.

Lift the heart and lift the head!
Lofty be its mood and grave,
Not without a martial ring,
Not without a prouder tread
And a peal of exultation:
Little right has he to sing
Through whose heart in such an hour
Beats no march of conscious power,
Sweeps no tumult of elation !

T'is no Man we celebrate,

By his country's victories great, A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all, For her time of need, and then Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. Come back, then, noble pride, for 't is her dower!

How could poet ever tower, If his passions, hopes, and fears, If his triumphs and his tears, Kept not measure with his people? Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and

waves!