I ordain A work to last thy whole life through, A ministry of strife and pain.
"Forego thy dreams of lettered ease, Put thou the scholar's promise by, The rights of man are more than these." He heard, and answered: "Here am I!" He set his face against the blast, His feet against the flinty shard, Till the hard service grew, at last, Its own exceeding great reward.
Lifted like Saul's above the crowd, Upon his kingly forehead fell The first sharp bolt of Slavery's cloud, Launched at the truth he urged so well.
Ah! never yet, at rack or stake, Was sorer loss made Freedom's gain, Than his, who suffered for her sake The beak-torn Titan's lingering pain! The fixed star of his faith, through all Loss, doubt, and peril, shone the same; As through a night of storm, some tall, Strong lighthouse lifts its steady flame.
Beyond the dust and smoke he saw The sheaves of Freedom's large increase, The holy fanes of equal law, The New Jerusalem of peace.
The weak might fear, the worldling mock, The faint and blind of heart regret; All knew at last th' eternal rock On which his forward feet were set.
The subtlest scheme of compromise Was folly to his purpose bold; The strongest mesh of party lies Weak to the simplest truth he told.
One language held his heart and lip, Straight onward to his goal he trod, And proved the highest statesmanship Obedience to the voice of God.
No wail was in his voice,--none heard, When treason's storm-cloud blackest grew, The weakness of a doubtful word; His duty, and the end, he knew.
The first to smite, the first to spare; When once the hostile ensigns fell, He stretched out hands of generous care To lift the foe he fought so well.
For there was nothing base or small Or craven in his soul's broad plan; Forgiving all things personal, He hated only wrong to man.
The old traditions of his State, The memories of her great and good, Took from his life a fresher date, And in himself embodied stood.
How felt the greed of gold and place, The venal crew that schemed and planned, The fine scorn of that haughty face, The spurning of that bribeless hand! If than Rome's tribunes statelier He wore his senatorial robe, His lofty port was all for her, The one dear spot on all the globe.
If to the master's plea he gave The vast contempt his manhood felt, He saw a brother in the slave,-- With man as equal man he dealt.
Proud was he?
If his presence kept Its grandeur wheresoe'er he trod, As if from Plutarch's gallery stepped The hero and the demigod, None failed, at least, to reach his ear, Nor want nor woe appealed in vain; The homesick soldier knew his cheer, And blessed him from his ward of pain.
Safely his dearest friends may own The slight defects he never hid, The surface-blemish in the stone Of the tall, stately pyramid.
Suffice it that he never brought His conscience to the public mart; But lived himself the truth he taught, White-souled, clean-handed, pure of heart.
What if he felt the natural pride Of power in noble use, too true With thin humilities to hide The work he did, the lore he knew?
Was he not just?
Was any wronged By that assured self-estimate?
He took but what to him belonged, Unenvious of another's state.
Well might he heed the words he spake, And scan with care the written page Through which he still shall warm and wake The hearts of men from age to age.
Ah! who shall blame him now because He solaced thus his hours of pain! Should not the o'erworn thresher pause, And hold to light his golden grain?
No sense of humor dropped its oil On the hard ways his purpose went; Small play of fancy lightened toil; He spake alone the thing he meant.
He loved his books, the Art that hints A beauty veiled behind its own, The graver's line, the pencil's tints, The chisel's shape evoked from stone.
He cherished, void of selfish ends, The social courtesies that bless And sweeten life, and loved his friends With most unworldly tenderness.
But still his tired eyes rarely learned The glad relief by Nature brought; Her mountain ranges never turned His current of persistent thought.
The sea rolled chorus to his speech Three-banked like Latium's' tall trireme, With laboring oars; the grove and beach Were Forum and the Academe.
The sensuous joy from all things fair His strenuous bent of soul repressed, And left from youth to silvered hair Few hours for pleasure, none for rest.
For all his life was poor without, O Nature, make the last amends Train all thy flowers his grave about, And make thy singing-birds his friends! Revive again, thou summer rain, The broken turf upon his bed Breathe, summer wind, thy tenderest strain Of low, sweet music overhead! With calm and beauty symbolize The peace which follows long annoy, And lend our earth-bent, mourning eyes, Some hint of his diviner joy.
For safe with right and truth he is, As God lives he must live alway; There is no end for souls like his, No night for children of the day! Nor cant nor poor solicitudes Made weak his life's great argument; Small leisure his for frames and moods Who followed Duty where she went.
The broad, fair fields of God he saw Beyond the bigot's narrow bound; The truths he moulded into law In Christ's beatitudes he found.
His state-craft was the Golden Rule, His right of vote a sacred trust; Clear, over threat and ridicule, All heard his challenge: "Is it just ?" And when the hour supreme had come, Not for himself a thought he gave; In that last pang of martyrdom, His care was for the half-freed slave.
Not vainly dusky hands upbore, In prayer, the passing soul to heaven Whose mercy to His suffering poor Was service to the Master given.
Long shall the good State's annals tell, Her children's children long be taught, How, praised or blamed, he guarded well The trust he neither shunned nor sought.
If for one moment turned thy face, O Mother, from thy son, not long He waited calmly in his place The sure remorse which follows wrong.
Forgiven be the State he loved The one brief lapse, the single blot; Forgotten be the stain removed, Her righted record shows it not! The lifted sword above her shield With jealous care shall guard his fame; The pine-tree on her ancient field To all the winds shall speak his name.
The marble image of her son Her loving hands shall yearly crown, And from her pictured Pantheon His grand, majestic face look down.
O State so passing rich before, Who now shall doubt thy highest claim?
The world that counts thy jewels o'er Shall longest pause at Sumner's name! 1874.
THEIRS I.
Fate summoned, in gray-bearded age, to act A history stranger than his written fact, Him who portrayed the splendor and the gloom Of that great hour when throne and altar fell With long death-groan which still is audible.
He, when around the walls of Paris rung The Prussian bugle like the blast of doom, And every ill which follows unblest war Maddened all France from Finistere to Var, The weight of fourscore from his shoulders flung, And guided Freedom in the path he saw Lead out of chaos into light and law, Peace, not imperial, but republican, And order pledged to all the Rights of Man.
II.
Death called him from a need as imminent As that from which the Silent William went When powers of evil, like the smiting seas On Holland's dikes, assailed her liberties.
Sadly, while yet in doubtful balance hung The weal and woe of France, the bells were rung For her lost leader.

Paralyzed of will, Above his bier the hearts of men stood still.
Then, as if set to his dead lips, the horn Of Roland wound once more to rouse and warn, The old voice filled the air! His last brave word Not vainly France to all her boundaries stirred.
Strong as in life, he still for Freedom wrought, As the dead Cid at red Toloso fought.
1877.
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE.
Among their graven shapes to whom Thy civic wreaths belong, O city of his love, make room For one whose gift was song.
Not his the soldier's sword to wield, Nor his the helm of state, Nor glory of the stricken field, Nor triumph of debate.
In common ways, with common men, He served his race and time As well as if his clerkly pen Had never danced to rhyme.
If, in the thronged and noisy mart, The Muses found their son, Could any say his tuneful art A duty left undone?
He toiled and sang; and year by year Men found their homes more sweet, And through a tenderer atmosphere Looked down the brick-walled street.
The Greek's wild onset gall Street knew; The Red King walked Broadway; And Alnwick Castle's roses blew From Palisades to Bay.
Fair City by the Sea! upraise His veil with reverent hands; And mingle with thy own the praise And pride of other lands.
Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe Above her hero-urns; And Scotland, with her holly, wreathe The flower he culled for Burns.
Oh, stately stand thy palace walls, Thy tall ships ride the seas; To-day thy poet's name recalls A prouder thought than these.
Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat, Nor less thy tall fleets swim, That shaded square and dusty street Are classic ground through him.
Alive, he loved, like all who sing, The echoes of his song; Too late the tardy meed we bring, The praise delayed so long.
Too late, alas! Of all who knew The living man, to-day Before his unveiled face, how few Make bare their locks of gray! Our lips of praise must soon be dumb, Our grateful eyes be dim; O brothers of the days to come, Take tender charge of him! New hands the wires of song may sweep, New voices challenge fame; But let no moss of years o'ercreep The lines of Halleck's name.
1877.
WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT.
Oh, well may Essex sit forlorn Beside her sea-blown shore; Her well beloved, her noblest born, Is hers in life no more! No lapse of years can render less Her memory's sacred claim; No fountain of forgetfulness Can wet the lips of Fame.
A grief alike to wound and heal, A thought to soothe and pain, The sad, sweet pride that mothers feel To her must still remain.
Good men and true she has not lacked, And brave men yet shall be; The perfect flower, the crowning fact, Of all her years was he! As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage, What worthier knight was found To grace in Arthur's golden age The fabled Table Round?
A voice, the battle's trumpet-note, To welcome and restore; A hand, that all unwilling smote, To heal and build once more; A soul of fire, a tender heart Too warm for hate, he knew The generous victor's graceful part To sheathe the sword he drew.
When Earth, as if on evil dreams, Looks back upon her wars, And the white light of Christ outstreams From the red disk of Mars, His fame who led the stormy van Of battle well may cease, But never that which crowns the man Whose victory was Peace.
Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore Thy beautiful and brave, Whose failing hand the olive bore, Whose dying lips forgave! Let age lament the youthful chief, And tender eyes be dim; The tears are more of joy than grief That fall for one like him! 1878.
BAYARD TAYLOR.
I.
"And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend ?" My sister asked our guest one winter's day.
Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send! What wouldst thou have me see for thee ?" She laughed, Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low, Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft." "All these and more I soon shall see for thee!" He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge, And Tromso freezing in its winter sea.
He went and came.

But no man knows the track Of his last journey, and he comes not back! II.
He brought us wonders of the new and old; We shared all climes with him.

The Arab's tent To him its story-telling secret lent.
And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told.
His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure, In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought; From humble home-lays to the heights of thought Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure.
How, with the generous pride that friendship hath, We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown Of civic honor on his brows pressed down, Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death.
And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears Two nations speak, we answer but with tears! III.
O Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft, Green as thy June turf keep his memory.