Flowers for the brave—
Be he monarch or slave,
Whose heart bore its grief and is still!
Flowers for the kind—
Aye, the Christians who wind
Wreaths for the triumphs o'er ill!
Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., May 21, 1904.
TO THE OLD YEAR—1865
Chill was thy midnight day,
While Justice grasped the sword to hold her throne,
And on her altar our loved Lincoln's own
Great willing heart did lay.
Thy purpose hath been won!
Thou point'st thy phantom finger, grim and cold,
To the dark record of our guilt unrolled,
And smiling, say'st, "'Tis done!
"This record I will bear
To the dim chambers of eternity—
The chain and charter I have lived to see
Purged by the cannon's prayer;
"Convulsion, carnage, war;
The pomp and tinsel of unrighteous power;
Bloated oppression in its awful hour,—
I, dying, dare abhor!"