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 be he, of balanced powers.
The ruler of a race like ours,
Impatient, headstrong, wild,—
The man to guide the child!
And this he was, who most unfit
(So hard the sense of God to hit!)
Did seem to fill his place.
With such a homely face,—
Such rustic manners,—speech uncouth,—
(That somehow blundered out the truth!)
Untried, untrained to bear
The more than kingly care!
Ay! And his genius put to scorn
The proudest in the purple born,
Whose wisdom never grew
To what, untaught, he knew—
The people, of whom he was one.
No gentleman like Washington,—
(Whose bones, methinks, make room,
To have him in their tomb!)
A laboring man, with horny hands,
Who swung the axe, who tilled his lands,
Who shrank from nothing new,
But did as poor men do!
One of the people! Born to be
Their curious epitome;
To share, yet rise above
Their shifting hate and love.