Ode
Shroud the banner! rear the cross!
Consecrate a nation's loss;
Gaze on that majestic sleep;
Stand beside the bier to weep;
Lay the gentle son of toil
Proudly in his native soil;
Crowned with honor, to his rest
Bear the prophet of the West.
How cold the brow that yet doth wear
The impress of a nation's care;
How still the heart, whose every beat
Glowed with compassion's sacred heat;
Rigid the lips, whose patient smile
Duty's stern task would oft beguile;
Blood-quenched the pensive eye's soft light;
Nerveless the hand so loth to smite;
So meek in rule, it leads, though dead,
The people as in life it led.
O let his wise and guileless sway
Win every recreant today,
And sorrow's vast and holy wave
Blend all our hearts around his grave!
Let the faithful bondmen's tears,
Let the traitor's craven fears,
And the people's grief and pride,
Plead against the parricide!
Let us throng to pledge and pray
O'er the patriot martyr's clay;
Then, with solemn faith in right,
That made him victor in the fight,
Cling to the path he fearless trod,
Still radiant with the smile of God.
Shroud the banner! rear the cross!
Consecrate a nation's loss;
Gaze on that majestic sleep;
Stand beside the bier to weep;
Lay the gentle son of toil
Proudly in his native soil;
Crowned with honor, to his rest
Bear the prophet of the West.
Lucy Larcom was born in Beverly, Mass., in 1826. At the age of seven years she wrote stories and poems. She spent three years in school, then worked in the cotton mills. Some of her writings attracted the attention of Whittier, from whom she received encouragement. At the age of twenty she went to Illinois and there taught school for some time, and for three years studied in Monticello Female Seminary. She returned to Massachusetts and during the war wrote many patriotic poems.