V Arise, American!
The soul of a nation awaking,—
High visions of daybreak,—I saw;
A people renewed; the forsaking
Of sin, and the worship of law.
Sing, pine-tree; shout, to the hoarser
Response of the jubilant sea!
Rush, river, foam-flecked like a courser;
Warn all who are honest and free!
Our birth-star beckons to trial
The faith of the far-fled years,
Ere scorn was our share, and denial,
Or laughter for patriots’ tears.
And Faith shall come forth the finer,
From trampled thickets of fire,
And the orient open diviner
Before her, the heaven rise higher.
O deep, sweet eyes, but severer
Than steel! See you yet, where he comes—
Our hero? Bend your glance nearer;
Speak, Faith! For, as wakening drums,
Your voice shall set his blood stirring;
His heart shall grow strong like the main
When the rowelled winds are spurring,
And the broad tides landward strain.
O hero, art thou among us?
O helper, hidest thou, still?
Why hast thou no anthem sung us,
Why workest thou not our will?
For a smirk of the face, or a favor,
Still shelters the cheat where he crawls;
And the truth we began with needs braver
Upholders, and loftier walls.
Too long has the land’s soul slumbered
In wearying dreams of gain,
With prosperous falsity cumbered
And dulled with bribes, as a bane.
Yes, cunning is civilized evil,
And crafty the gold-baited snare;
But virtue, in fiery upheaval,
May cast fine device to the air.
Bring us the simple and stalwart
Purpose of earlier days.
Come! Far better than all were’t—
Our precepts, our pride, and our lays—
That the people in spirit should tremble
With heed of the God-given Word;
That we cease from our boast, nor dissemble,
But follow where truth’s voice is heard.
Come to us, mountain-dweller,
Leader, wherever thou art;
Skilled from thy cradle, a queller
Of serpents, and sound to the heart!
Modest and mighty and tender;
Man of an iron mold;
Honest, fine-grained, our defender;—
American-souled!
The Name of Washington
[Read before the Sons of the Revolution, New-York, February 22, 1887]
Sons of the youth and the truth of the nation,
Ye that are met to remember the man
Whose valor gave birth to a people’s salvation,
Honor him now; set his name in the van.
A nobleness to try for,
A name to live and die for—
The name of Washington.
Calmly his face shall look down through the ages—
Sweet yet severe with a spirit of warning;
Charged with the wisdom of saints and of sages;
Quick with the light of a life-giving morning.
A majesty to try for,
A name to live and die for—
The name of Washington!
Though faction may rack us, or party divide us,
And bitterness break the gold links of our story,
Our father and leader is ever beside us.
Live, and forgive! But forget not the glory
Of him whose height we try for,
A name to live and die for—
The name of Washington!
Still in his eyes shall be mirrored our fleeting
Days, with the image of days long ended;
Still shall those eyes give, immortally, greeting
Unto the souls from his spirit descended.
His grandeur we will try for,
His name we ’ll live and die for—
The name of Washington!
Grant’s Dirge
I
Ah, who shall sound the hero’s funeral march?
And what shall be the music of his dirge?
No single voice may chant the Nation’s grief,
No formal strain can give its woe relief.
The pent-up anguish of the loyal wife,
The sobs of those who, nearest in this life,
Still hold him closely in the life beyond;—
These first, with threnody of memories fond.
But look! Forth press a myriad mourners thronging,
With hearts that throb in sorrow’s exaltation,
Moved by a strange, impassioned, hopeless longing
To serve him with their love’s last ministration.
Make way! Make way, from wave-bound verge to verge
Of all our land, that this great multitude
With lamentation proud albeit subdued,
Deep murmuring like the ocean’s mighty surge,
May pass beneath the heavens’ triumphal arch!
II
What is the sound we hear?
Never the fall of a tear;
For grief repressed
In every breast
More honors the man we revere.
Rising from East and West,
There echoes afar or near—
From the cool, sad North and the burning South—
A sound long since grown dear,
When brave ranks faced the cannon’s mouth
And died for a faith austere:
The tread of marching men,
A steady tramp of feet
That never flinched nor faltered when
The drums of duty beat.
With sable hats whose shade
Falls from the cord of gold
On every time-worn face;
With tattered flags, in black enrolled,
Beneath whose folds they warred of old;
Forward, firmly arrayed,
With a sombre, martial grace;
So the Grand Army moves
Commanded by the dead,
Following him whose name it loves,
Whose voice in life its footsteps led.
III
Those that in the combat perished,—
Hostile shapes and forms of friends,—
Those we hated, those we cherished,
Meet the pageant where it ends.
Flash of steel and tears forgiving
Blend in splendor. Hark, the knell!
Comrades ghostly join the living—
Dreaming, chanting: “All is well.”
They receive the General sleeping,
Him of spirit pure and large:
Him they draw into their keeping
Evermore, in faithful charge.
IV
Pass on, O steps, with your dead, sad note!
For a people’s homage is in the sound;
And the even tread, in measured rote,
As a leader is laid beneath the ground,
Rumors the hum of a pilgrim train
That shall trample the earth as tramples the rain,
Seeking the door of the hero’s tomb,
Seeking him where he lies low in the gloom,
Paying him tribute of worker and mage,
Through age on age!
V
Tall pine-tree on McGregor’s height,
How didst thou grow to such a lofty bearing,
For song of bird or beat of breeze uncaring,
There where thy shadow touched the dying brow?
Were all thy sinewy fibres shaped aright?
Was there no flaw? With what mysterious daring
Didst thou put forth each murmuring, odorous bough
And trust it to the frail support of air?
We only know that thou art now supreme:
We know not how thou grewest so tall and fair.
So from the unnoticed, humble earth arose
The sturdy man whom we, bewailing, deem
Worthy the wondrous name fame’s far voice blows.
And lo! his ancient foes
Rise up to praise the plan
Of modest grandeur, loyal trust,
And generous power from man to man,
That lifted him above the formless dust.
O heart by kindliness betrayed,
O noble spirit snared and strayed—
Unmatched, upright thou standest still
As that firm pine-tree rooted on the hill!
VI
No paragon was he,
But moulded in the rough
With every fault and scar
Ingrained, and plain for all to see:
Even as the rocks and mountains are,
Common perhaps, yet wrought of such true stuff
That common nature in his essence grew
To something which till then it never knew;
Ay, common as a vast, refreshing wind
That sweeps the continent, or as some star
Which, ’mid a million, shines out well-defined:
With honest soul on duty bent,
A servant-soldier, President;
Meekest when crowned with victory,
And greatest in adversity!
VII
A silent man whom, strangely, fate
Made doubly silent ere he died,
His speechless spirit rules us still;
And that deep spell of influence mute,
The majesty of dauntless will
That wielded hosts and saved the State,
Seems through the mist our spirits yet to thrill.
His heart is with us! From the root
Of toil and pain and brave endurance
Has sprung at last the perfect fruit,
The treasure of a rich assurance
That men who nobly work and live
A greater gift than life may give;
Yielding a promise for all time,
Which other men of newer date
Surely redeem in deeds sublime.
Forerunner of a valiant race,
His voiceless spirit still reminds us
Of ever-waiting, silent duty:
The bond of faith wherewith he binds us
Shall hold us ready hour by hour
To serve the sacred, guiding power
Whene’er it calls, where’er it finds us,
With loyalty that, like a folded flower,
Blooms at a touch in proud, full-circled beauty.
VIII
Like swelling river waves that strain,
Onward the people crowd
In serried, billowing train.
And those so slow to yield,
On many a hard fought field,
Muster together
Like a dark cloud
In summer weather,
Whose threatening thunders suddenly are stilled,—
And all the world is filled
With smiling rest. Victory to him was pain,
Till he had won his enemies by love;
Had leashed the eagle and unloosed the dove;
Setting on war’s red roll the argent seal of peace.
So here they form their solid ranks again,
But in no mood of hatred or disdain.
They say: “Thou who art fallen at last,
Beleaguered stealthily, o’ercome by death,
Thy conqueror now shall be magnanimous
Even as thou wast to us.
But not for thee can we blot out the past:
We would not, if we might, forget thy last
Great act of war, that with a gentle hand
Brought back our hearts unto the mighty mother,
For whose defence and honor armed we stand.
We hail thee brother,
And so salute thy name with holy breath!”
IX
Land of the hurricane!
Land of the avalanche!
Land of tempest and rain;
Of the Southern sun and of frozen peaks;
Stretching from main to main;—
Land of the cypress-glooms;
Land of devouring looms;
Land of the forest and ranch;—
Hush every sound to-day
Save the burden of swarms that assemble
Their reverence dear to pay
Unto him who saved us all!
Ye masses that mourn with bended head,
Beneath whose feet the ground doth tremble
With weight of woe and a sacred dread—
Lift up the pall
That to us shall remain as a warrior’s banner!
Gaze once more on the fast closed eyes;
Mark once the mouth that never speaks;
Think of the man and his quiet manner:
Weep if you will; then go your way;
But remember his face as it looks to the skies,
And the dumb appeal wherewith it seeks
To lead us on, as one should say, “Arise—
Go forth to meet your country’s noblest day!”
X
Ah, who shall sound the hero’s funeral march?
And what shall be the music of his dirge?
Let generations sing, as they emerge
And pass beneath the heavens’ trumphal arch!
Battle Days
I
Veteran memories rally to muster
Here at the call of the old battle days:
Cavalry clatter and cannon’s hoarse bluster:
All the wild whirl of the fight’s broken maze:
Clangor of bugle and flashing of sabre,
Smoke-stifled flags and the howl of the shell,
With earth for a rest place and death for a neighbor,
And dreams of a charge and the deep rebel yell.
Stern was our task in the field where the reaping
Spared the ripe harvest, but laid our men low:
Grim was the sorrow that held us from weeping:
Awful the rush of the strife’s ebb and flow.
Swift came the silence—our enemy hiding
Sudden retreat in the cloud-muffled night:
Swift as a hawk-pounce our hill-and-dale riding;
Hundreds on hundreds we caught in their flight!
Hard and incessant the danger and trial,
Laid on our squadrons, that gladly bore all,
Scorning to meet with delay or denial
The summons that rang in the battle-days’ call!
II
Wild days that woke to glory or despair,
And smote the coward soul with sudden shame,
But unto those whose hearts were bold to dare
All things for honor brought eternal fame:—
Lost days, undying days!
With undiminished rays
Here now on us look down,
Illumining our crown
Of leaves memorial, wet with tender dew
For those who nobly died
In fierce self-sacrifice of service true,
Rapt in pure fire of life-disdaining pride;
Men of this soil, who stood
Firm for their country’s good,
From night to night, from sun to sun,
Till o’er the living and the slain
A woful dawn that streamed with rain
Wept for their victory dearly won.
III
Days of the future, prophetic days,—
Silence engulfs the roar of war;
Yet, through all coming years, repeat the praise
Of those leal comrades brave, who come no more!
And when our voices cease,
Long, long renew the chant, the anthem proud,
Which, echoing clear and loud
Through templed aisles of peace,
Like blended tumults of a joyous chime,
Shall tell their valor to a later time.
Shine on this field; and in the eyes of men
Rekindle, if the need shall come again,
That answering light that springs
In beaconing splendor from the soul, and brings
Promise of faith well kept and deed sublime!