| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | January 15 | | Everett | | By Thomas William Parsons (1819–1892) |
| | (Edward Everett died Jan. 15, 1865)
SO fell our stateman—for he stood sublime | |
| On that proud pedestal, a people’s heart— | |
| As when some image, through the touch of time, | |
| That long was reverenced in the public mart; | |
| As some tall clock-tower, that was wont to tell | 5 |
| The hour of duty to the young and olden, | |
| With tongue most musical of every bell, | |
| Bends to its base, and is no more beholden! | |
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| So fell our Everett: more like some great elm, | |
| Lord of the grove, but something set apart, | 10 |
| That all the tempests could not overwhelm, | |
| Nor all the winters of his seventy years, | |
| But on some peaceful midnight bursts his heart. | |
| And in the morning men behold the wreck, | |
| (Some with gray hairs, who cannot hold their tears), | 15 |
| But in the giant timber find no speck | |
| Nor unsound spot, but only wholesome wood. | |
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| No secret worm consuming at the core | |
| The stem that ever seemed so fair and good; | |
| And aged men that knew the tree of yore | 20 |
| When but a sapling, promising full well, | |
| Say to each other, “This majestic plant | |
| Came to its full growth; it made no idle vaunt; | |
| From its own weight, without a flaw, it fell!” | | | | |
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