In vain the hand essays its skill,
Unaided by the organ’s keys;
In vain the bugler’s breath until
The horn repeats his melodies.
Among the tributes to Rev. James Freeman Clarke, on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of his birth, in Boston, were the following lines in a poem read by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe:
What nuptials hast thou blest,
What dear ones laid to rest,
What infants welcomed with the holy sign.
Life’s hospitality
Was so akin to thee