AFTER the eyes that looked, the lips that spake | |
| Here, from the shadows of impending death, | |
| Those words of solemn breath, | |
| What voice may fitly break | |
| The silence, doubly hallowed, left by him? | 5 |
| We can but bow the head, with eyes grown dim, | |
| And, as a Nation’s litany, repeat | |
| The phrase his martyrdom hath made complete, | |
| Noble as then, but now more sadly sweet: | |
| “Let us, the living, rather dedicate | 10 |
| Ourselves to the unfinished work, which they | |
| Thus far advanced so nobly on its way, | |
| And save the perilled state! | |
| Let us, upon this field where they, the brave, | |
| Their last full measure of devotion gave, | 15 |
| Highly resolve they have not died in vain!— | |
| That, under God, the Nation’s later birth | |
| Of Freedom, and the people’s gain | |
| Of their own Sovereignty, shall never wane | |
| And perish from the circle of the earth!” | 20 |
| From such a perfect text, shall Song aspire | |
| To light her faded fire, | |
| And into wandering music turn | |
| Its virtue, simple, sorrowful, and stern? | |
| His voice all elegies anticipated; | 25 |
| For, whatsoe’er the strain, | |
| We hear that one refrain: | |
| “We consecrate ourselves to them, the Consecrated!” | |
| |
| After the thunder-storm our heaven is blue: | |
| Far off, along the borders of the sky, | 30 |
| In silver folds the clouds of battle lie, | |
| With soft, consoling sunlight shining through; | |
| And round the sweeping circle of your hills | |
| The crashing cannon-thrills | |
| Have faded from the memory of the air; | 35 |
| And Summer pours from unexhausted fountains | |
| Her bliss on yonder mountains: | |
| The camps are tenantless, the breastworks bare: | |
| Earth keeps no stain where hero-blood was poured: | |
| The hornets, humming on their wings of lead, | 40 |
| Have ceased to sting, their angry swarms are dead, | |
| And, harmless in its scabbard, rusts the sword! | |
| |
| Oh, not till now,—Oh, now we dare, at last, | |
| To give our heroes fitting consecration! | |
| Not till the soreness of the strife is past, | 45 |
| And Peace hath comforted the weary Nation! | |
| So long her sad, indignant spirit held | |
| One keen regret, one throb of pain, unquelled; | |
| So long the land about her feet was waste, | |
| The ashes of the burning lay upon her, | 50 |
| We stood beside their graves with brows abased, | |
| Waiting the purer mood to do them honor! * * * * * | |
| And yet, ye Dead!—and yet | |
| Our clouded natures cling to one regret: | |
| We are not all resigned | 55 |
| To yield, with even mind, | |
| Our scarcely risen stars, that here untimely set. | |
| We needs must think of History that waits | |
| For lines that live but in their proud beginning,— | |
| Arrested promises and cheated fates,— | 60 |
| Youth’s boundless venture and its single winning! | |
| We see the ghosts of deeds they might have done, | |
| The phantom homes that beaconed their endeavor; | |
| The seeds of countless lives, in them begun, | |
| That might have multiplied for us forever! | 65 |
| We grudge the better strain of men | |
| That proved itself, and was extinguished then,— | |
| The field, with strength and hope so thickly sown, | |
| Wherefrom no other harvest shall be mown: | |
| For all the land, within its clasping seas, | 70 |
| Is poorer now in bravery and beauty, | |
| Such wealth of manly loves and energies | |
| Was given to teach us all the free man’s sacred duty! * * * * * | |
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