Edmund Clarence Stedman (Эдмунд Кларенс Стедман)

Horace Greeley

Earth, let thy softest mantle rest
⁠On this worn child to thee returning,
Whose youth was nurtured at thy breast,
⁠Who loved thee with such tender yearning!
He knew thy fields and woodland ways,
⁠And deemed thy humbleest son his brother:—
Asleep, beyond our blame, or praise,
⁠We yield him back, O gentle Mother!

Of praise, of blame he drank his fill:
⁠Who has not read the life-long story?
And dear we hold his fame, but still
⁠The man was dearer than his glory.
And now to us are left alone
⁠The closet where his shadow lingers,
The vacant chair,—that was a throne,—
⁠The pen, just fallen from his fingers.

Wrath changed to kindness on that pen;
⁠Though dipped in gall, it flowed with honey;
One flash from out the cloud, and then
⁠The skies with smile and jest were sunny.
Of hate he surely lacked the art,
⁠Who made his enemy his lover:
O reverend head and Christian heart!
⁠Where now their like the round world over?

He saw the goodness, not the taint,
⁠In many a poor, do-nothing creature,
And gave to sinner and to saint,
⁠But kept his faith in human nature;
Perchance he was not worldly-wise,
⁠Yet we who noted, standing nearer,
The shrewd, kind twinkle in his eyes,
⁠For every weakness held him dearer.

Alas that unto him who gave
⁠So much, so little should be given!
Himself alone he might not save
⁠Of all for whom his hands had striven.
Place, freedom, fame, his work bestowed:
⁠Men took, and passed, and left him lonely;—
What marvel if, beneath his load,
⁠At times he craved—for justice only!

Yet thanklessness, the serpent's tooth,
⁠His lofty purpose could not alter;
Toil had no power to bend his youth,
⁠Or make his lusty manhood falter;
From envy's sling, from slander's dart,
⁠That armored soul the body shielded,
Till one dark sorrow chilled his heart,
⁠And then he bowed his head and yielded.

Now, now, we measure at its worth
⁠The gracious presence gone forever!
The wrinkled East, that gave him birth,
⁠Laments with every laboring river;
Wild moan the free winds of the West
⁠For him who gathered to her prairies
The sons of men, and made each crest
⁠The haunt of happy household fairies;

And anguish sits upon the mouth
⁠Of her who came to know him latest:
His heart was ever thine, O South!
⁠He was thy truest friend, and greatest!
He shunned thee in thy splendid shame,
⁠He stayed thee in thy voiceless sorrow;
The day thou shalt forget his name,
⁠Fair South, can have no sadder morrow.

The tears that fall from eyes unused,—
⁠The hands above his grave united,—
The words of men whose lips he loosed,
⁠Whose cross he bore, whose wrongs he righted,—
Could he but know, and rest with this!
⁠Yet stay, through Death's low-lying hollow,
His one last foe's insatiate hiss
⁠On that benignant shade would follow!

Peace! while we shroud this man of men
⁠Let no unhallowed word be spoken!
He will not answer thee again,
⁠His mouth is sealed, his wand is broken.
Some holier cause, some vaster trust
⁠Beyond the veil, he doth inherit:
O gently, Earth, receive his dust,
⁠And Heaven soothe his troubled spirit! 

1. Sumter
2. The Heart of New England
3. Kearny at Seven Pines
4. The Ballad of Lager Bier
5. Gifford

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