Poems (Proctor)/Horace Greeley
HORACE GREELEY.
As if in lone Franconia one had said,
"Alas! the glorious monarch of the hills,
Mount Washington, is fallen to the vale!
The direful echo all the silence fills;
The winds sweep down the gorge with bitter wail;
The lesser heights rise trembling and dismayed,
And the fond sun goes, clouded, to the west;"—
So to the street, the fireside, came the cry,
"Our King of Men, our boldest, gentlest heart,
He whose pure front was nearest to the sky,
Whose feet stood firmest on Eternal Right;
With his swift sympathies and giant might
That sealed him for the martyr's, warrior's part,
And led, through loss, to nobler victory—
Lies low, to-day, in death's unchallenged rest!"
"Alas! the glorious monarch of the hills,
Mount Washington, is fallen to the vale!
The direful echo all the silence fills;
The winds sweep down the gorge with bitter wail;
The lesser heights rise trembling and dismayed,
And the fond sun goes, clouded, to the west;"—
So to the street, the fireside, came the cry,
"Our King of Men, our boldest, gentlest heart,
He whose pure front was nearest to the sky,
Whose feet stood firmest on Eternal Right;
With his swift sympathies and giant might
That sealed him for the martyr's, warrior's part,
And led, through loss, to nobler victory—
Lies low, to-day, in death's unchallenged rest!"
How we entombed him! Not imperial Rome
Gave her dead Cæsars sepulture so grand,
Though gems and purple on the pyre were flung!
His tender requiem hushed the clamorous land;
And thus, by power lamented, poet sung,
Through stricken, reverent crowds we bore him home
When winter skies were fair and winds were still!
And for his fame,—while oceans guard our shores
And mountains midway lift their peaks of snow
To the clear azure where the eagle soars;
While peace is sweet, and the world yearns again
To hear the angel-strain, "Good will to men;"
While toil brings honor, virtue vice deplores,
And liberty is precious,—it shall grow,
And the great future with his spirit fill.
Gave her dead Cæsars sepulture so grand,
Though gems and purple on the pyre were flung!
His tender requiem hushed the clamorous land;
And thus, by power lamented, poet sung,
Through stricken, reverent crowds we bore him home
When winter skies were fair and winds were still!
And for his fame,—while oceans guard our shores
And mountains midway lift their peaks of snow
To the clear azure where the eagle soars;
While peace is sweet, and the world yearns again
To hear the angel-strain, "Good will to men;"
While toil brings honor, virtue vice deplores,
And liberty is precious,—it shall grow,
And the great future with his spirit fill.
Nov. 29, 1872,