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You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace,
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Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,
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His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,
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His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,
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His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,
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His lack of all we prize as debonair,
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Of power or will to shine, of art to please!
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You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,
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Judging each step, as though the way were plain;
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Reckless, so it could point its paragraph,
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Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain!
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Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet
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The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
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Between the mourners at his head and feet—
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Say, scurril jester, is there room for you?
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Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer—
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To lame my pencil and confute my pen—
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To make me own this hind, of princes peer,
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This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men.
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My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,
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Noting how to occasion's height he rose;
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How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true,
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How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows;
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How humble, yet how hopeful he could be;
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How in good fortune and in ill the same;
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Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
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Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.
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He went about his work—such work as few
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Ever had laid on head, and heart, and hand—
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As one who knows where there's a task to do,
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Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command;
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Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
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That God makes instruments to work His will,
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If but that will we can arrive to know,
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Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.
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So he went forth to battle, on the side
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That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,
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As in his peasant boyhood he had plied
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His warfare with rude nature's thwarting mights;—
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The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,
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The iron bark that turns the lumberer's axe,
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The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil,
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The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks,
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The ambushed Indian and the prowling bear—
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Such were the needs that helped his youth to train:
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Rough culture—but such trees large fruit may bear,
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If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.
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So he grew up, a destined work to do,
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And lived to do it: four long, suffering years
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Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through,
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And then he heard the hisses change to cheers,
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The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
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And took both with the same unwavering mood;
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Till, as he came on light, from darkling days,
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And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,
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A felon hand, between the goal and him,
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Beached from behind his back, a trigger prest—
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And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim,
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Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest!
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The words of mercy were upon his lips,
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Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen,
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When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
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To thoughts of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
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The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
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Utter one voice of sympathy and shame!
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Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high;
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Sad life, cut short as its triumph came!
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The Old Clock on the Stairs
СКАЧАТЬ
