We can trace your gravest errors.
Your aim was fixed and sure;
And e'en if your acts were fanatic,
We know your hearts were pure.
You lived so near to heaven,
You overreached your trust,
And deemed yourselves creators,
Forgetting you were but dust
But we with our broader visions,
With our wider realms of thought,
I often think would be better
If we lived as our fathers taught.
Their lives seemed bleak and rigid,
Narrow and void of bloom;
Our minds have too much freedom,
And conscience too much room.
They overreached in duty,
They starved their hearts for the right;
We live too much in the senses,
We bask too long in the light.
They proved by their clinging to Him
The image of God in man;
And we, by our love of license,
Strengthen a Darwin's plan.
But bigotry reached its limit,
And license must have its sway,
And both shall result in profit
To those of a later day.
With the fetters of slavery broken,
And freedom's flag unfurled,
Our nation strides onward and upward,
And stands the peer of the world.
Spires and domes and steeples
Glitter from shore to shore;
The waters are white with commerce,
The earth is studded with ore;
Peace is sitting above us,
And Plenty, with laden hand,
Wedded to sturdy Labor,
Goes singing through the land.
Then let each child of the nation
Who glories in being free,
Remember the Pilgrim Fathers
Who stood on the rock by the sea;
For there in the rain and tempest
Of a night long passed away,
They sowed the seeds of a harvest
We gather in sheaves to-day.
[LINES WRITTEN UPON THE DEATH OF JAMES BUELL.]
Something is missing from the balmy spring;
There is no perfume in its gentle breath;
And there are sobs in songs the wild birds sing,
And all the bees chant of the grave and death--
Something is missing from the earth. One morn
The angels called a new name on the roll;
A spirit soldier to their ranks was borne,
And all Christ's army welcomed the pure young soul.
He died. Two little words, but only God
Can understand the awful depths of woe
They hold for those who pass beneath the rod,
Praying for strength, from Him who aimed the blow.
He died. The soldier who fought long and well,
Who walked with Death upon the battle-field,
Among the bellowing guns--the shrieking shell--
In poison prison dens--and would not yield.
A six month three times told, he languished there,
And yet he lived; oh, young heart, strong and brave!
Thank God, who heard the oft repeated prayer;
Thank God, he does not fill a Southern grave;
That when he died, the loved ones gathered round,
And eased the anguish of those last, sad hours;
That gentle hands can keep the precious mound
All green with mosses, and abloom with flowers.