The clamor of the clans is overawed,
To mourn the dead made perfect with his God.
Yet mourn we not the statesman’s death alone,
His hearthstone’s glory far exceeds a throne.
Though crowned with civic honors is his name,
Husband and Father have a dearer fame;
Glory attends the leader to his rest,
But most she mourns the man who knew him best.
Nor swiftest wind, nor farthest ocean’s foam,
Visits a spot so dear to man as home;
O, you who mourn an upright President,
Mourn with a stricken wife in her lament.
Lament a loving husband, nobler name
Than King or Czar or Emperor can claim.
Love, not oppression, built for her a throne—
The tribute, gladly paid, was love alone.
She needs no hollow pomp of heraldry;
God gave the wife the greatest majesty.
Pure as Madonna, whose celestial blush
Glows in the tints of Raphael’s magic brush,
Gems of the heart and jewels of the mind
Enriched the wife and all her acts refined,
And with a native majesty endued
“America’s uncrowned Queen of Womanhood,”[F]
For Home is ever woman’s grandest sphere,
Whose fruitful virtues make her memory dear,
While vice and ruin curse the falling land,
Where childhood lacks the mother’s plastic hand.
Through many changing years of good and ill,
The name of Westfield shall be honored still.
Pure homes compose the country’s best defense,
The strongest, promptest, and of least expense,
And round its coasts a surer guard will keep
Than camps or forts or navies on the deep.
THE HARP IN THE AIR;
OR
A NIGHT WITH GERARDI IN SEELBACH’S ROOF-GARDEN.
(A Family Epistle from a Girl full of “Grace” to “Big Sis” in Cherokee Park.)
Dear Sis—
You’re losing fun galore, rusticating just at present,
Although fresh eggs and buttermilk and country fare are pleasant.
Music and mirth are in the air—not razors keen and sharp—
’Tis the touch of old Gerardi, a-twanging on his harp.