LAY him beneath his snows, | |
| The great Norse giant who in these last days | |
| Troubled the nations. Gather decently | |
| The imperial robes about him. ’Tis but a man,— | |
| This demi-god. Or rather it was man, | 5 |
| And is—a little dust, that will corrupt | |
| As fast as any nameless dust which sleeps | |
| ’Neath Alma’s grass or Balaklava’s vines. | |
| |
| No vineyard grave for him. No quiet tomb | |
| By river margin, where across the seas | 10 |
| Children’s fond thoughts and women’s memories come | |
| Like angels, to sit by the sepulchre, | |
| Saying: “All these were men who knew to count, | |
| Front-faced, the cost of honor, nor did shrink | |
| From its full payment: coming here to die, | 15 |
They died—like men.”
But this man? Ah! for him | |
| Funereal state, and ceremonial grand, | |
| The stone-engraved sarcophagus, and then | |
Oblivion.
Nay, oblivion were as bliss | |
| To that fierce howl which rolls from land to land | 20 |
| Exulting,—“Art thou fallen Lucifer, | |
| Son of the morning?” or condemning,—“Thus | |
| Perish the wicked!” or blaspheming,—“Here | |
| Lies our Belshazzar, our Sennacherib, | |
| Our Pharaoh,—he whose heart God hardened, | 25 |
| So that he would not let the people go.” | |
| Self-glorifying sinners! Why, this man | |
| Was but like other men:—you, Levite small, | |
| Who shut your saintly ears, and prate of hell | |
| And heretics, because outside church-doors, | 30 |
| Your church-doors, congregations poor and small | |
| Praise heaven in their own way;—you, autocrat | |
| Of all the hamlets, who add field to field | |
| And house to house, whose slavish children cower | |
| Before your tyrant footstep;—you, foul-tongued | 35 |
| Fanatic and ambitious egotist, | |
| Who thinks God stoops from His high majesty | |
| To lay His finger on your puny head, | |
| And crown it,—that you henceforth may parade | |
| Your maggotship throughout the wondering world,— | 40 |
“I am the Lord’s anointed!”
Fools and blind! | |
| This Czar, this emperor, this disthroned corpse, | |
| Lying so straightly in an icy calm | |
| Grander than sovereignty, was but as ye;— | |
| No better and no worse;—Heaven mend us all! | 45 |
| |
| Carry him forth and bury him. Death’s peace | |
| Rest on his memory! Mercy by his bier | |
| Sits silent, or says only these few words,— | |
| “Let him who is without sin ’mongst ye all | |
| Cast the first stone.” | 50 |
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