As wistfully I gazed upon their graves
A vision passed before me. On a mount
That glowed with light ineffable appeared
The New Year, in imperial garments clad,
Erect and tall and God-like in his mien,
With strength immortal in his manly limbs
And hope and courage beaming from his eyes.
And lo, swift breaking from the clouds, he saw
Coming in splendor like the morning sun,
The reunited Empire of the West,
Swelled on the ear the ever-murmuring hu
Of populous cities on unnumbered streams,
And marts of commerce by a hundred lakes.
The teeming fields, with varied harvests, waved,
And tinkling bells on distant hills revived
Sweet memories of Arcadia’s pastoral days.
Fair science led her train by every grove
And hill and stream, and pure religion filled
Her solemn temples with perpetual hymns
And fervent supplication to her God.
And from above the shades of years departed
Sang with a voice that filled the firmament:
“Hail, New Year, hail the noblest child of Time;
The Power which brought the fathers o’er the flood
Has saved the offspring from the sevenfold fire.
A Union healed shall date its life from thee,
Redemption’s golden era. From its shield
No star shall vanish in forlorn eclipse,
Nor exiled Pleiad chant in skies remote
Her solitary song, nor sundered be
The marriage bond of States, by law confirmed
And the eternal oracles of God.”
MONODY
On the Death of Abraham Lincoln.
[Read at a Memorial Meeting, Nashville, held at the State House, April 16, 1865. Governor Brownlow delivered the address.]
Soft breathe the vernal winds, the sky is fair,
And April’s fragrance scents the dewy air.
Yon Heaven looks down on earth with eyes as mild
As a young mother’s on her sleeping child,
Jealous lest aught should break her infant’s calm,
And lulling its soft slumbers with a psalm.
So soft, so holy, comes the forest hymn,
From yon far hill-tops, misty, blue and dim,
While war’s discordant tumult seems to cease
In the sweet music of returning peace.
Yet where the fount of joy in crystal springs,
Some venomed asp its rankling poison flings,
And where the violets shed their fragrant breath
The nightshade pours the blistering dews of death
What bloody phantom with a brow of wrath
Stalks in the van of our triumphal path,
And o’er our banners flings a funeral veil,
Till Heaven grows black and mortal cheeks grow pale?
’Twas in the halls of mirth, a gala night,
Bright lamps o’er joyful thousands shed their light,
The nation’s Father sat amid the throng,
Relaxed his brow and heard the festal song;
He dreams not of conspiracy, nor sees
Above his head the sword of Damocles;
Wide opes the sepulchre its marble jaws,
All nature seems to make a breathless pause;
The deadly aim is made—the death-shot flies,
And Freedom’s martyr passes to the skies.
Oh, Statesman, Hero, Patriot, Friend, and Sire,
Now the pale tenant of a funeral pyre,
Whose red right hand four years has held the rod,
The minister of Freedom and of God,
Yet with the rod the blooming olive held,
While the dark deluge of rebellion swelled
And thundered round our Ark—an Argosy
More dear than all the jewels of the sea,
And still with outstretched arms essayed to save
The shipwrecked seamen from the yawning wave!
Thy love was strong as woman’s—who like thee
Their interceding angel now shall be?
A genial wit, a homely native sense,
Nearer to truth than studied eloquence,
A quiet courage to defend the right,
And leave to Heaven the issue of the fight;
A will of adamant, which seemed to be
The very flower of maiden modesty,
A conscience, holding truth of greater worth
Than all the crowns and treasures of the earth;
A love, whose strong affections seemed to bind
In one the happiness of all mankind;
These were the jewels whose celestial flame
Shall burn with quenchless glow round Lincoln’s name,
The virtues which shall make his memory dear
While Justice reigns in yon eternal sphere.
And millions shall lament, with honest grief,
The People’s friend and Freedom’s fallen chief;
The huntsman shall forget the eager chase,
And pause to wipe his weatherbeaten face,
The daring sailor, on the distant sea,
Shall shed a teardrop to his memory;
The widow’s tears shall quench her cottage fire,
The soldier’s orphan moan his second sire.
There need no glittering trappings of the tomb,
No martial dirge, nor hearse with nodding plume,
To tell their grief; but words devoid of art
Show how this stroke has pierced the Nation’s heart.
Precious the tears shall be the Nation weeps,
And sacred be the sod where Lincoln sleeps.
His fame shall be the jewel of the West,
Like a rich pearl on Beauty’s throbbing breast.
Mourn, O ye Mountains!—altars of the sky—
Fit monuments of him who cannot die;
Mourn, loud Atlantic! let thy thunder-dirge
Chant the sad requiem with Pacific’s surge.
Mourn, O New England! on thy granite base.
Mourn, Illinois, thy desolate dwelling-place;
Kentucky, mourn! thy second God-like son
Sleeps in the dust, life’s duty nobly done;
Mourn, Tennessee! The Hero of the Age
Sleeps with the Lion of the Hermitage;
Chanted the melancholy song shall be,
By all thy streams which hasten to the sea,
While Nashville’s echoing wall of cedared hills
With mournful cadence all the valley fills.