Ina D. Coolbrith: Verses about Faith

O Mother Earth, how couldst thou let him go?
Thy son, whose every touch was a caress
To blossom into all of loveliness-
This gentle son of thine who loved thee so!
Who lived a gospel humblest souls but know,
And voiced his faith in deeds that live and bless.
Lo, all the treasure of thy veins were less
Than this, the gold such Alchemist may show

Thou wert almost a heaven beyond compare
To him, wherein he witnessed everywhere
The Maker’s handwork; in each path he trod
And followed with his labor, like to prayer,
What soul has walked within a way more fair? -
A cleaner pathway to a surer God?

A lark’s song dropped from heaven,
A rose’s breath at noon;
A still, sweet stream that flows and flows
Beneath a still, sweet moon:

A little way-side flower
Plucked from the grasses, thus-
A sound, a breath, a glance- and yet
What is it they bring to us?

For the world grows far too wise,
And wisdom is but grief;
Much thought makes but a weary way,
And question, unbelief.

Thank God for the bird’s song,
And for the flower’s breath!
Thank God for any voice to wake
The old sweet hymn of faith!

For a world grown all too wise,
(Or is it not wise enough?)
Thank God for anything that makes
The path less dark and rough!

Poet-Astronomer, who night by night
God’s star-page scanned, yet failed to read aright,
Where throughout space His alphabet of suns
Spells Life, in inextinguishable light!

For not, if cycling Time might blot the whole
Of that vast scheme from the illuminated scroll,
The Worlds, incalculable, to rayless void,
Could cease of Man the imperishable Soul.

O finite mind that would the infinite
To challenge seek, and measure! Piteous plight!
How happier the bird of lightest wing,
That soars and trusts the Teacher of its flight!

An empty glass upon a broken shrine,
What matters it? The quaffed or unquaffed wine?
See the clear goblet with what nectar brimmed
From fountains inexhaustible, devine!

Just to make Pancho jealous-ay de mi! -
With Juan I flitered. I cared not for Juan,
Yet talked, layghed, danced with him, just but to see
My Pancho’s eyes grow flame as he looked on.

Padre, it is the woman’s way, you know-
And I’m but woman: Si, ’with fire to play.’
What would you? Could I dream ‘twould madden so?
Ah, God! the fires of hell are mine today!

‘Twas in the moonlight, in the garden where’
The roses bloom the thickest, night half sped,
And Juan had placed a rose bud in my hair-
There was a flash of steel, and Juan lay dead.

Mary! Madonna! Help Thou me this day!
Pancho I loved-him only, Mother Divine! . . .
And Juan is dead. . . O Padre mio, pray!
Pray for my soul, for Pancho’s soul and mine!

O soul! However sweet
The goal to which I hasten with swift feet-
If, just within my grasp,
I reach, and joy to clasp,
And find there one whose body I must make
A footstool for that sake,
Though ever and forevermore denied,
Grant me to turn aside!

O, howsoever dear
The love I long for, seek, and find anear-
So near, so dear, the bliss
Sweetest of all that is,
If I must win by treachery or art,
Or wrong one other heart,
Thought it should bring me death, my soul, that day
Grant me to turn away!

That in the life so far
And yet so near, I be without a scar
Of wounds dealt others! Greet with lifted eyes
The pure of Paradise!
So I may never know
The agony of tears I caused to flow!

The gods looked down upon the worlds of space,
The multitudinous worlds that to their will
Move circling, cycling, each, in rhythmic time,
One pulse the less a Universe in wreck,
The gods looked down-nor smiled- they do not smile,
Nor wept-they do not weep. Immutable,
Unto his Star appointed, each must hold
And answer to the One God, over all.

But lo! whence come these ceaseless agonies-
(Wherethro’, perhaps, a sweet child treble breaks,
A thread of silver in a sable pall)
From what far Sphere the cursings, dread, despair,
The strife, blasphemies ‘gainst gods and men,
And pleadings to the gods-that will not know
Its own the power to answer and to right-
The help within before the help without-
A World in travail that must travail still.

And He, the One Omnipotent, Supreme,
Throbbing His life-pulse thro’ the Universe,
Infinite wisdom, pity infinite: -
‘These puny atoms! What know they of pain? ’

I
At Bethlehem
Shepherds, what of the night?
‘Dark, dark and cold;
Snow upon field and fold,
Wind that is fierce and wild!
But over the wastes of white,
Far in the Eest, and far,
Rises a strange new Star;
Its lusters rest and shine
On the roof of the stabled Kine,
Where, or a dream beguiled,
Was the cry of a new-born child.’
II
After Calvary
Watchers, what of the night?
‘Well! well! all’s well!
Behold God’s miracle
Of Life and Light!
Lo, He the Crucified,
He, for our sins who died,
Jesus, the Holy Slain,
Lives, lives again!
In the dawn’s first glow that gleamed
We have seen Him and adored,
Our Savior, King and Lord!
He has broken the tomb’s dread prison-
Christ is risen! Christ is risen! -
And the World is redeemed-redeemed! ’

III
After Nineteen Centuries
Brothers, what of the night?
‘Ah! who can say?
We seek, we watch, we pray,
But where is the light?
Still here the sin and shame-
The poor and weak down-trod;
The wrongs that have no name,
The good by evil slain!
The blood-soaked battle-sod,
The cries of “Kill! ” and “Slay! ”-
The pain, the tears, the cries. . .
O thou White Son of God,
Was all the lesson vain-
In vain the Sacrifice? ’

O foolish wisdom sought in books!
O aimless fret of household tasks!
O chains that bind the hand and mind-
A fuller life my spirit asks.

For there the grand hills, summer-crown’d,
Slope greenly downward to the seas:
One hour of rest upon their breast
Were worth a year of days like these.

Their cool, soft green to ease the pain
Of eyes that ache o’er printed words;
This weary noise—the city’s voice,
Lulled in the sound of bees and birds.

For Eden’s life within me stirs,
And scorns the shackles that I wear.
The man-life grand: pure soul, strong hand,
The limb of steel, the heart of air!

And I could kiss, with longing wild,
Earth’s dear brown bosom, loved so much,
A grass-blade fanned across my hand,
Would thrill me like a lover’s touch.

The trees would talk with me; the flowers
Their hidden meanings each make known—
The olden lore revived once more,
When man’s and nature’s heart were one.

And as the pardoned pair might come
Back to the garden God first framed,
And hear Him call at even-fall,
And answer, “ Here am I, ” unashamed-

So I, from out these toils, wherein
The Eden-faith growns stained and dim,
Would walk, a child, through Nature’s wild,
And hear His voice and answer Him.

Just for a day to put my sorrow by!
Forget that summer dies, that roses die;
And the swift swallow, circling round the eaves,
Leaves us with falling leaves.

Forget the sky shall lose its gold; the sea
Grow white in tempest, and the long nights be
Forlorn of stars, and dreary with the rains
Beating against the panes.

Forget that change is, and the sorrow is;
That souls grow tired, and sweetest memories
In time turn bitter, and the one sure friend
Is death, that makes an end.

Just a day to put aside the years,
Washed clean of wrongs, of sins, of heavy tears;
And dream that life is fair, and love a truth,
And youth is always youth.

That if the swallow goes, ‘tis for a day,
To come again at dawn, with merrier lay,
Learned in the old fair lands, and the rose brings
New splendors with new springs.

That God is near, and Heaven near, and Death
So far the young heart scarcely reckoneth
The time by years and years; as now by days-
And the whole earth is praise.

And faith is as a spotless dove, with wings
Unclogged with doubt, with many questionings
Unansweared; and the heart not yet doth tire
Of its own vain desire.

Just for a day to pull all sad things by,
Forget that dreams are dead, that dreams must die-
Joy is a breath, and hope a star that sets;
Forget, as love forgets!

The night falls, heavy with the coming storm!
Far out, the ocean frets against the bar,
And the cloud-legions, gathering force and form,
Shut, with closed ranks, all gleam of moon or star.
Tempestuous darkness! and unto the dawn,
Long hours. Ah! with the passing will there be
The gold and crimson by the sun-rays drawn,
Or tempest still, and moaning of the sea?
The world is heavy with the coming storm!
No nation wars with nation, race with race,
But where the love-pulse should beat quick and warm,
Lo! brother against brother, face to face.
Abel unto the god of blood gives blood,
Who heeds not the fair fruitage of the land,
And wrong and rage, of viper-nests the brood,
Arm Cain with flaming heart and flaming brand.
Where is the peace that should with thee abide
O Earth? Art still beneath the primal ban,
Availing naught the Holy Crucified?
No faith in God because no faith in man!
Thy helpless idols help thee not-Awake!
Arise, and let thy weary burden fall!
Captive, the fetters of the ages break,
And, thrall to Mammon, be no longer thrall.

O Spirit of the Holy One, from where
On high Thou dwellest, lend Thy loving will
To quell these battle-giants of the air,
And to the warring waters speak, 'Be still.'
Or if from darkness, only, springs the light,
And but from struggle blessed peace is born,
Loose all the awful thunders of Thy might-
And hail, the night! that heralds the glad morn.

I have dreamed of San Francisco all the way-
Francis d’ Assisi! Seeking Monterey,
That hides itself among these strangenesses-
Leading now here, now there- to dizzy height
That challenges the very stars of night-
Then drops to jungled vale,
Or cannoned rocks-till fail
My men and beasts alike in utter stress,
Through weary miles and miles
And days of tears and smiles,
While still my sapphire of the ocean lies
Lost to my seeking eyes.

And, Pedro, it is surly strange that he,
Saint Francis, seems to be
Thus ever in my sight.
Nay, scarcely that, at night,
But vision only; and by day
A frail, slight form in gray,
That ever leads the way. . .
That ‘leads the way, ’ nay, I myself have said;
Is it not his to lead still, having lead?

My patron saint, you know, because he knew
Such love for all things living. Never grew
On this old earth aught that bore not its part
In his great heart;
And in return
His every rose blossomed without a thorn,
And birds and branches sung,
And the dumb creatures found for him a tongue.

Dios! What strange new glory this that breaks
Upon the vision as the morning wakes,
And the thick mist rolls back
From camp and track?
What jeweled radiance singing to our feet
While sound and color meet?
And look! The Golden Door
Out to the Ocean floor! ...
Frances d’ Assissi! This, aye this to thee,
This magic inner Sea!
O Bay of San Francisco, thou, his own-
Save God’s alone!

(H. C.)
Where in the unknown way,
Sister, now stands
Thy soul-who yesterday
With us joined hands?

Where lies thy land unseen,
O Warden Death?
With just a touch between,
A pulse, a breath-

Yet with what barrier barred?
That gulf profound
Which sleepless sentries guard
From sight and sound!

Never to human cries
Has answer come
Through all the centuries.
Relentless, dumb

To prayer, to tear, to moan-
Each one, to learn,
Must walk that path alone,
Nor backward turn.

Not she, our friend, may tell,
Just swiftly passed;
The law immutable
Holds her as fast

As Egypt’s old pharaoh-
A mummy, dun,
A thousand years ago,
Beneath the sun.

Thus to earth-sense is seen
Death, as we look
On its still face, serene-
Life’s sealed book;

Yet, as to each the Day
Comes with that call,
Who of us dare to say
That this is all?

We feel that somewhere, bright,
An answer lies;
That past each bitter night,
A dawn must rise;

That, as the soul of man
Came unto Earth,
In the eternal plan
Must be re-birth

To a diviner sphere. . .
Sister and friend,
Held in our hearts so dear,
Not this the end.

Lo! we shall follow thee,
Seek thee, and find!
Joy of the life to be
Who has divined?

Come, white-winged messenger.
God’s heavenly dove,
Faith-with thy message clear,
To weeping love.

J.F.B. Died April 29,1882

Forth from this low estate,
Fetterless now of fate,
Pass, spirit blest!
Out of the cark and care,
Out of the griefs that were,
Into thy rest.

Done with the weary round
Daily thy soul that bound
From its true aim, -
Little can matter now
Fame’s wreath upon the brow,
Earth-praise or blame.

God! is there of despair
Keener than this to bear,
Under the sun:
Tasked, like a slave in chains,
While our true work remains
Waiting, undone?

Feeling, as life sweeps by,
All the pure majesty
Of that we miss?
Fettered and tortured so,
Christ, pity all who know
Sorrow like this!

Not here was given his wage:
Of his best heritage
Barred and denied.
Man of the silver tongue,
Poet of songs unsung,
Dreamer, clear-eyed;

Slave not to gain or greed;
Bound by no narrow creed
By priestcraft taught:
In God’s fair universe
Seeing nor hate, nor curse
Of Him that wrought;

Trusting the love divine, -
Carless of church or shrine,
Blessing or ban;
His prayer the common good,
His faith the brotherhood
Of man with man.

And if unto his eyes
Veiled were the mysteries
Of the far shore,
Who of us all may be
Wiser, in truth, than he?
Who knoweth more?

Never the kindly wit
Lighter, because of it,
Sad hearts shall make;
No more the earnest thought,
With its deep lesson fraught,
Souls shall awake.

Eloquent eye and lip,
Peerless companionship,
Passed from the earth.
Friend of the many years,
Well for thee fall my tears,
Knowing thy worth.

Flowers on the gentle breast,
Lay the frail form to rest
Under the sod.
Passed from earth’s low estate,
Fetterless now of fate,
Leave him with God.

Aye, but my feet are light upon the hills!
Light as the leaping deer, light as the wind,
Light as the soaring bird-for winged with joy!
And my heart sings (hearken the voice of it!)
With all my forests in the song-the streams-
And the great Sea that rims my golden shores.
Nay, from the deeps of far Creation’s morn
The slumbering echoes that are never mute-
The primal throes of all the things that are-
God busy with His world in fashioning;
Through the long aeon days of change on change,
God busy with His world in fashioning still.

Aye, am I glad! For is not this fair land-
Fairest of all lands, wreathed and crowned to-day
As never in the ages gone before?
Past now the days of desert solitudes,
The summits lifted lonely to the stars,
First that but knew the padded moccasin,
And then the Hero-Saint who bore the Cross
To it, with Him, the Life, the Nazarene!
And then the livid lure and dross of gold;
Then-(from a weed so ill a bloom so fair!)
Vast fields of fruit and harvest; thronging homes;
Science with searching gaze demanding truth-
And Art to add new perfectness to Art-
And greater, sweeter, dearer far then all,
Across the mighty vastness of sea
The living voice of human Brotherhood,
And peal of the great bell of London town,
That rang from sacred walls to speak to mankind,
One heart, one home, one people and one God!

O, land of mine-my land that is so loved-
‘Lift up thine eyes unto the hills’-nay, lift
Thine eyes unto the stars-make thou thy goal
As fair and great as thou art sweet and fair;
Make all of ill to die from out thy bounds
As dies the ill weed from the tended soil,
And thy fair bosom bloom as blooms the rose.
Peace brood with thee- a Dove with folded wings-
And Love thy Law as it was Christ’s one Law-
Wherewith no thing of wrong can ever dwell.
So shalt thou be, white as thy Shasta’s snows,
In thy divinest grace and purity
Evangel of the nations, speaking Man
God busy with His world of fashioning still.

Francis D’ Assisi, gentlest Saint of Saint’s,
Within his garden where the roses grew
That knew no thorn, slept from a weariness
Of overtoil, lulled by the the minstrelsy
Of leaf and bird; and thereto, as he slept,
From out the jungle-side a leopard crept
And at his feet crouched in soft-purring guard:
For all things loved Saint Francis- giving love
To all things-with a heart clean of all ill.
Sleeping, he dreamed a strange and wondrous dream
Of strange and wondrous seas, strange, wondrous shores,
And length of strange and wondrous wanderings
That burdened not; light labor, footways light,
And even pain an acstasy, for borne
For love of the dear Lord’s, Saviour’s sake
And with him walked a Fellowship of Love,
Unsandaled, bare of brow, gray-garmented-
The humble garb he knew since the far day
He doffed his princely robbing for the vow
Of toil and serviture and poverty.
And in the spaces which his footsteps trod
One land there was of great loveliness,
With mountain-summits white with trackless snow-
The living temples builded unto God-
And mighty forest trees that sought the skies-
Such dazzling skies! Beloved of the sun!
And Oh, to the Gray Brotherhood hoe dear
The land, responding with what bloom-
Whose white walls rose to worship, and who gave
Their God into its savage untaught Race.
One space was there where a great crystal lay-
A jewel set within a rim of gold-
Whose waters leaped and sparkled, laughed and sang
To its great City of the Seven Hills-
And lo! the city bore Saint Francis’ name! . . .
The Saint awoke, and trembling, turned to prayer:
‘Ah! blessed Christ.’ He saught, ’what is my fault
That even in a dream such pride be mine?
I seek no honor save Thy will to serve.
If this Thy will, yet grant me this alone,
That unto Thee I may reconsecrate.’

And long years passed, and the great City grew
Of all the earth the queenliest and most fair;
Leading in knowledge grew:
Teaching all truth as Truth was given to Man;
Aye, beautiful upon the hills and free,
To God, to Christ, divinely consecrate!

The chime of many bells upon the air
Calling to halls of prayer,
And, from the street,
A child’s laugh, shrill and sweet,
Break in upon my silence, and the thought
The day has brought.

Christ’s Day! The sacred morn
Whereon, long centuries past, the Lord was born.
With the deep-toning bells,
The organs’ sinks and swells,
The churches’ pageantry,
The song, the feasting and festivity-
How many think of Thee?
Of Thee, and this Thy day,
And all the solemn story which it tells?

Do I? I look within
On mine own sin;
I do not need to gaze without, to find
The mote that makes another’s vision blind,
Or seek along strange ways
For burdens that make weary all the days.
I know Whose willing breast
Would bear my load;
I know Whose clasp, most blest,
Would lead the feet that stumble on the road;
I know His sure abode, -
And hear, unceasingly,
The call, “Come unto me,
And I will give you rest! ”

We know . . . and answer not!
The fiercest fights are fought,
Not between nations, nor ‘twixt race and race,
But in the human soul’s still, secret space.
The pride that yields not unto foe or friend;
The stubborn will that breaks not, nor will bend;
The vengeful thought where falsehood’s cruel wrong
And serpent-fanged ingratitude have stung;
The base ambition that would self exalt,
Upon another’s effort; envy, strife,
The cowardice that dares not own the fault;
The vampire, hate that drains the veins of life, -
Of these the forces which the soul engage
To hold it from its holy heritage:
Of these the foes, whose multitudes appall,
That it must meet, to fell them or to fall.

How hard it seems! How simple it all is!
And oh, the priceless worth!
It reckons not of worldly power or pelf,
Nor of earth-praise the meed.
The all in all in this His simple creed:
“Love thou thy God; thy neighbor as thyself;
Forgive, as thou dost hope to be forgiven! ”
And lo! we have sweet Heaven
About us on earth.

It is Thy day, dear Lord,
Help me remember it.
Help me to live thy word,
So living, honor it.
Help me to thrust away
My cruel foes, to-day,
Forever and for aye.
It is Thy day, dear Lord,
It is Thy Day!

In Memory of Celia Thaxter.

There is a shadow on the sea!
And a murmur, and a moan,
In its muffed monotone,
Like a solemn threnody;
And the sea-gulls, on their white
Pinions, moving to and fro,

Are like phantoms, in their flight;
As they sweep from off the gray,
Misty headlands, far away,
And about the Beacon Light,
Wheel in circles, low and slow,
Wheel and circle, peer and cry,
As though seeling, restlessly,
Something vanished from their sight.
As though listening for the clear
Tones they never more may hear, -
Music missing from the day,
Music, missing from the night, -
Through the years, that wax and wane,
That may never sound again.

She, who ever loved the sea,
Loved and voiced its minstrelsy, -
Sang its white-caps, tossing free,
Sang the ceasless breaker-shocks,
Dashing, crashing, on the rocks,
Sang itsmoon-drawn tides, its speech,
Silver-soft, upon the beach,
Walks the margin’s golden floor, -
Floats upon its breast no more,

Nay! how know we this to be?
That the forms we may not see,
Passed from mortal touch and ken,

Never come to earth again?
When the brittle house of clay
From the spirit breaks away,
Does the mind forego its will?
Is the voice’s music still?
Do the hands forget their skill?
From the harp-great homer’s heart, -
Do not mighty numbers come?
Lost, divinest Raphael’s art,
And the lips of Shakespeare dumb?
All the years of joy and pain
That are lived, but lived in vain;
Memory’s graven page a blot,
Unrecorded and forgot!

Oh, believe, believe it not!
Man is God’s incarnate thought:
Life, with all the gifts He gave,
All the wondrous powers He wrought,
Finds not ending at the grave.
Part, himself, of Deity,
Man, the spirit, can not die.
“In my Father’s house are
Many mansions.” Did Christ say
Whether near, or whether far?
It may be beside us still
Bide these forms invisible;
Or, if passed to realms away,
Beyond sight’s remotest star,

Does that bind the soul to stay, -
Never, never, to retrace
The golden passage-ways of space? -
As a parted child might yearn
For the mothers arms, and turn,
Fain to look on Earth’s dear face.
‘Twixt the heart that loves and her
Space could place no barrier:
Thought, that swifter is than light,
Leaps a universe in flight.

So I love to think, indeed,
That this singing spirit, free
From her lesser, lower height-

Soaring to the Infinite, -
Turns with loving eyes, and a smile,
Still Sees the tower’s beacon-light,
Shining safely through the night;
Sees the white surf as it rolls
Round her treasured Isle of Shoals, -
Looking from that vaster sea,
Which we name Eternity.

WRITTEN FOR THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC,
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, DECORATION DAY,1881

The sea-tides ebb and flow;
The seasons come and go,
Summer and sun succeed the cloud and snow,
And April rain awakes the violet.
Earth puts away
Her somber robes, and cheeks with tear-drops wet
In some sad yesterday
Dimple again with smiles, and half forget
Their grief, as the warm rose
Forgets the night-dews when the noontide glows.

Change follows upon change
Swift as the hours; and far away, and strange
As the dim memory of night’s troubled dream
In dawn’s returning beam,
Seem the dark, troubled years,
The sad, but glorious years,
Writ on the nation’s heart in blood and tears.

Ah, God! and yet we know
It was no dream in those days, long ago:
It was no dream, the beat
To arms, the steady tramp along the street
Of answering thousands, quick with word and deed
Unto their country’s need;
No dream the banners, flinging, fresh and fair
Their colors on the air-
Not stained and worn like these
Returning witnesses,
With sad, dumb lips, most eloquent of those
Returning nevermore!
Of those on many a hard-fought battlefield,
From hand to hand that bore
Their starry folds, and, knowing not to yield,
Fell, with a brave front steady to their foes.

Year after year the spring steals back again,
Bringing the bird and blossom in her train,
Beauty and melody,
But they return no more!
Borne on what tides of pain,
Over the unknown sea,
Unto the unknown shore:
Amid the pomp and show
Of glittering ranks, the cannon’s smoke and roar,
Tossed in the rock and reel
Of the wild waves of battle to and fro,
Amid the roll of drums, the ring of steel,
The clash of sabre, and the fiery hell
Of bursting shot and shell,
The scream of wounded steeds, the thunder tones
Of firm command, the prayers, the cheers, the groans, -
War’s mingled sounds of triumph and despair.
Blending with trumpet-blast and bugle-blare.

But not alone amid the battle wrack
They died, - our brave true men.
By southern glade and glen,
In dark morass, within whose pathless deeps,
The serpent coils and creeps,
They fell, with the fierce bloodhound on their track.
Amid the poisonous breath
Of crowded cells, and the rank, festering death
Of the dread prison-pen;
From dreary hospital,
And the dear, sheltering wall
Of home, that claimed them but to lose again,
They passed away, - the army of our slain!

O leader! Tried and true,
What words may speak of thee?
Last sacrifice divine,
Upon our country’s shrine!
O man, that toward above
Thy follow-men, with heart the tenderest,
And “whitest soul the nation ever knew! ”
Bravest and kingliest!
We lay our sorrow down
Before thee, as a crown;
We fold thee with our love
In silence: where are words to speak of thee?

For us the budded laughter of the May
Is beautiful to-day,
Upon the land, but nevermore for them,
Our heroes gone the rose upon its stem
Unfolds, or the fair lily blooms to bless
Their living eyes, with its pure loveliness;
No song-bird at the morn
Greets them with gladness of a day new-born;
No kiss of a child or wife
Warms their cold lips again to love and life,
Breaking sweet slumbers with as sweet release.
They may not wake again!
But from the precious soil,
Born of their toil-
Nursed with what crimson rain-
We pluck to-day the snow-white flower of peace.

He does not die, who in a noble cause
Renders his life: immortal as the laws
By which God rules the universe is he.
Silence his name may hold,
His fame untold
In all the annals of earth’s great may be,
But, bounded by no span
Of years which rounds the common lot of man,
Lo! he is one
Henceforward, with the work which he has done,
Whose meed and measure is Eternity.

They are not lost to us, they still are ours,
They do not rest. Cover their graves with flowers-
Earth’s fairest treasures, fashioned with skill,
Which makes the daisy’s disk a miracle
No less than man. On monument and urn,
Let their rich fragrance burn,
Like incense on a altar; softly spread
A royal mantle o’er each unmarked bed,
And, as a jeweled-rain,
Drop their bright petals for the nameless dead
And lonely, scattered wide
On plain and mountain-side,
Beneath the wave, and by the river-tide.
So let them rest
Upon their country’s breast.
They have not died in vain:
Through them she lives, with head no longer bowed
Among the nations, but erect and proud-
Washed clean of wrong and shame,
Her freedom never more an empty name,
Her all her scattered stars as one again.