AT GRADY’S GRAVE.
“WE live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breadths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial;
We should count time by heart-throbs; he most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best”—
The Poet, dreaming in divinest mood,
Scanning the future with a Prophet’s eyes,
Beheld the outlines of the Perfect Man
Take shape before the vision of his soul;
And though the beauteous phantom could not stay,
He caught its grace and glory in the song
Wherein he praises the Ideal Man
Of whom he dreamed, and whom the world should know,
When in the teeming womb of Time the years
Had ripened him, mature in every part.
While yet the world, expectant of this man,
Watched, mutely wondering when and whence would come
This radiant one, this full-bloom, fairest flower
Of manhood’s excellence, which Heaven itself
Were fain to keep, to crown the angels with—
God granting unto Earth but one or two
Within the cycle of a century—
Lo! suddenly, from out the realm of Dreams,
The splendid Vision of the musing bard,
His perfect and ideal Man, came forth,
And walked within the common light of day,
A living, breathing Presence—Henry Grady!
Did not this marvelously gifted man,
Who trod with us the old, familiar paths,
And glorified them daily with strange light,
As if a god were dwelling in our midst,
Measure, full-length, the stature of the man
The Poet quarried from the mines of Thought?
What though his years were brief, did he not fill
Their precious brevity with glorious deeds,
Till he outlived the utmost lives of men
Of lesser mold, of feebler fibred souls?
Garnering betwixt his cradle and his grave
The ripened harvests of a century!
Did he not live in thoughts as flowers live
In sunshine, filling the whole world with light,
And the celestial fragrance of his soul!
Did he not live in feelings so refined,
That every heart-string into music woke,
Though touched more lightly than a mother’s mouth
Would touch the sleep-sealed eyelids of her babe!
Ah, were the throbs of his great, loving heart,
Meet as a measure for his span of life?
Would not such measure circle all the world,
And find no end, save in infinity?
If he lives most—(and who shall dare deny
A truth which is as true as God is true?)
If he doth live the most who thinks the most,
Who feels the noblest, and who acts the best,
Thou, O my friend! didst to the utmost mete
Of transitory mortal life live out
Thine earthly span, though to our eyes thy life
Seems like the flashing of a falling star,
Which for a moment fills the heavens with light,
And vanishes forever.
Nay, not so—
The Poet’s words are thy best epitaph!
And though the stone which marks thy grave but tells
The number of the years thy mortal frame
Retained that eagle-wingèd soul of thine,
How long thy all-compassionating heart
Inhabited its clayey tenement,
As one of God’s blest almoners, sent down
To fill the world with light and melody;
Tells when that prophet-tongue of thine was stilled,
Which, touched with inspiration’s sacred fire,
Preached Man’s eternal brotherhood, and led
The battle waged for Justice, Truth, and Right,
Still, and despite the tears that Sorrow woos
From the spontaneous fountains of our hearts,
We know that thou didst come unto thy grave
Brimful of years, if noble deeds and thoughts,
If love to God and Man, be made alone
The measure of thy length of human years;
And that, even as thy soul beyond the stars
Shall live—as God lives—everlastingly,
So shall the memory of thy shining deeds,
Remain forever in the hearts of men;
Nor shall the record of thy fame be touched
By Time’s defacing hand—thou art immortal!
And now, dear friend, farewell to thee! Thine eyes
Have death’s inviolate seal upon their lids;
They cannot see the Season’s glorious shows,
Although, methinks, in memory of thee
The grass grows greener here, and tenderer
The daily benediction of the sun
Falls on thy grave, as if thy very dust
Had sentience still, and, kindling into life
Under the fiery touchings of the sun,
Broke through the turfy barriers of the tomb
To mingle with the light, and mellow it;
There’s not a flower that timidly uplifts
Its smiling face, to look upon the Dawn,
Or bows its head to worship silently
The awful glory of the midnight stars,
But what takes on a gentler grace for thee,
And for thy sake a sweeter incense flings
From out its golden censer.
Nor, my friend,
Will thy dull ears awaken to the songs,
Of jubilant birds, the Summer’s full-voiced choir,
Singing thy praises—for they sing of Love,
And Love was the high choral of thy life,
The swan-song of thy soul; thou canst not hear
The sweetest sounds—made sweeter for thy sake
By the presiding Genius of this place—
The silvery minor-music of the rain,
Those murmurous drops, with iterations soft,
Of every flower, and trembling blade of grass,
A fairy’s cymbal make; the whispering wind,
The sea-like moaning of the distant pines,
The sound of wandering streams, or, sweeter still,
The voice of happy children at their play—
Ah, none of these interminable tones
Of Nature’s many-chorded instrument,
Which make the music of the outward world,
As thou didst make its inner harmony,
Out of the finer love-chords of thy heart,
Shall ever move thee; but a mightier charm
Shall often woo thee from thy heavenly home,
To shed upon thy place of sculpture
The splendor of a Presence from the skies;
For thou shalt see a fairer sight than all
The panoramas of the Seasons bring,
And hear far sweeter music than the sound
Of murmuring waters, or the melody
Of birds that warble in their happy nests:
Yea, thou shalt see how little children come
To deck thy grave with daisies, wet with tears;
See homeless Want slow hither wend his way,
To bless the ashes of “the poor man’s friend,”
And from the scant dole of his wretchedness,
Despite his hunger, lay a liberal gift
Upon thy grave, in token of his love;
And in the pride and glory of her state,
Sceptred and crowned, the Spirit of the South,
Whose Heart, and Soul, and living Voice thou wert,
Will come with Youth and Manhood by her side,
To draw fresh inspirations from thy dust,
And consecrate her children with thy fame,
Till they have learned the lessons of thy life,
And glorify her, too, with noble deeds;
Thou shalt behold here, coming from all lands,
The men who honor Love and Loyalty,
Who glory in the strength of those who scale
The mountain-summits of Humanity,
And from their star-encircled peaks proclaim
The Fatherhood of the Eternal God,
The Brotherhood of Man—both being one
In holy bonds of justice, truth, and love—
Christ’s “Peace on Earth and good-will unto Men”—
That old evangel, preached anew by thee,
Till the persuasion of thy golden tongue
Quickened and moved the world with mighty love,
As if a god had come to earth again!
Charles W. Hubner.
Atlanta, Ga.
MEMORIAL MEETINGS.