Had pierced, had crushed Rebellion dead,—
Without a Hand, without a Head:—
At last, when all was well,
He fell—O, how he fell!
The time,—the place,—the stealing Shape,—
The coward shot,—the swift escape,—
The wife—the widow's scream,—
It is a hideous Dream!
A Dream?—what means this pageant, then?
These multitudes of solemn men,
Who speak not when they meet,
But throng the silent street?
The flags half-mast, that late so high
Flaunted at each new victory?
(The stars no brightness shed,
But bloody looks the red!)
The black festoons that stretch for miles,
And turn the streets to funeral aisles?
(No house too poor to show
The Nation's badge of woe!)
The cannon's sudden, sullen boom,—
The bells that toll of death and doom,—
The rolling of the drums,—
The dreadful Car that comes?
Cursed be the hand that fired the shot!
The frenzied brain that hatched the plot!
Thy Country's Father slain
By thee, thou worse than Cain!
Tyrants have fallen by such as thou,
And Good hath followed—May it now!
(God lets bad instruments
Produce the best events.)
But he, the Man we mourn to-day,
No tyrant was: so mild a sway
In one such weight who bore
Was never known before!
Cool should he be, of balanced powers,
The Ruler of a Race like ours,
Impatient, headstrong, wild,—
The Man to guide the Child!