Poems (Angier)/Pedigree

by Annie Lanman Angier

PEDIGREE. "What's in a name?"

Ere I can grant the boon you ask,
And aid you in your gentle task;
I first must weave the magic spell,
Which brings a draught from Truth's deep well.

To me, fame, honor, pedigree,
Seem but like leaves on yonder tree,
They bud and flourish, fade and die,
Then in one common grave they lie.

The stately oak—the forest king,
In whose green boughs the robins sing;
The flowering shrub, whose branches wave
In fragrance o'er the tiniest grave:

All, all are equal in His sight,
Who only sees the Wrong and Right;
Condemns the first, the last approves,
Oft chiding most where most He loves.

A certain esculent, they say,
On tables seen from clay to day;
Much like some families is found,
The better part is under ground.

To this opinion I incline,
And cheerfully the verdict sign;
E'en though oblivion's sullen wave
My name consign to nameless grave.

What though no human pen record
The lineage of peasant, lord?
A regal soul, and modest worth,
Far, far outweigh the pride of birth.

In yon blue arch, the tiniest star
That now gleams faintly from afar,
May in some constellation bright,
Reign King of Day or Queen of Night:

And souls who self have crucified,
Survive, when perish pomp and pride,—
Who toil for others, and for God,
Their memory blooms, like Aaron's rod;

And Phoenix-like, their very dust
Shall live, like him men called—"The Just."
For Christ-like heart, and Heaven-taught mind,
Nor chains, nor death, can hold or bind.

So, when you ask for items, dear,
Ancestral monument to rear;
I smiling think—"Vain hope, to see
An earthly immortality!"