In the annals of the ages, he who had no thought of fame
(Keeping on the path of duty, caring not for praise or blame),
Close beside the deathless Lincoln, writ in light, will shine his name.
Youth proclaimed him as a hero; time, a statesman; love, a man;
Death has crowned him as a martyr,—so from goal to goal he ran,
Knowing all the sum of glory that a human life may span.
He was chosen by the people; not an accident of birth
Made him ruler of a nation, but his own intrinsic worth.
Fools may govern over kingdoms—not republics of the earth.
He has raised the lovers’ standard by his loyalty and faith,
He has shown how virile manhood may keep free from scandal’s breath.
He has gazed, with trust unshaken, in the awful eyes of Death.
In the mighty march of progress he has sought to do his best.
Let his enemies be silent, as we lay him down to rest,
And may God assuage the anguish of one suffering woman’s breast.
GRIEF
As the funeral train with its honoured dead
On its mournful way went sweeping,
While a sorrowful nation bowed its head
And the whole world joined in weeping,
I thought, as I looked on the solemn sight,
Of the one fond heart despairing,
And I said to myself, as in truth I might,
“How sad must be this sharing.”
To share the living with even Fame,
For a heart that is only human,
Is hard, when Glory asserts her claim
Like a bold, insistent woman;
Yet a great, grand passion can put aside
Or stay each selfish emotion,
And watch, with a pleasure that springs from pride,
Its rival—the world’s devotion.
But Death should render to love its own,
And my heart bowed down and sorrowed
For the stricken woman who wept alone
While even her dead was borrowed;
Borrowed from her, the bride—the wife—
For the world’s last martial honour,
As she sat in the gloom of her darkened life,
With her widow’s grief fresh upon her.
He had shed the glory of Love and Fame
In a golden halo about her;
She had shared his triumphs and worn his name:
But, alas! he had died without her.
He had wandered in many a distant realm,
And never had left her behind him,
But now, with a spectral shape at the helm,
He had sailed where she could not find him.