Such thunderbolts, in other lands,
Have smitten the rod from royal hands,

But spared, with us, till now,

Each laurelled Cesar's brow!

No Cesar he, whom we lament,
A Man without a precedent,

Sent, it would seem, to do
His work-and perish too!

Not by the weary cares of State,
The endless tasks, which will not wait.

Which, often done in vain,

Must yet be done again :

Not in the dark, wild tide of War,
Which rose so high, and rolled so far,
Sweeping from sea to sea

In awful anarchy:

Four fateful years of mortal strife,
Which slowly drained the Nation's life,

(Yet, for each drop that ran

There sprang an armed man!)

Not then;-but when by measures meet,-
By victory, and by defeat-

By courage, patience, skill,

The People's fixed "We will!"

Had pierced, had crushed Rebellion dead,Without a Hand, without a Head;

At last, when all was well,

He fell O, how he fell!

The time, the place, the stealing Shape,The coward shot,-the swift escape,

The wife-the widow's scream,—

It is a hideous Dream!

A Dream?-what means this pageant, then?
These multitudes of solemn men,

Who speak not when they meet,
But throng the silent street?

The flags half-mast, that late so high
Flaunted at each new victory?

(The stars no brightness shed,
But bloody looks the red!)

The black festoons that stretch for miles,
And turn the streets to funeral aisles?
(No house too poor to show
The Nation's badge of woe!)

The cannon's sudden, sullen boom,The bells that toll of death and doom,— The rolling of the drums,—

The dreadful Car that comes?

Cursed be the hand that fired the shot! The frenzied brain that hatched the plot: Thy Country's Father slain

By thee, thou worse than Cain !

Tyrants have fallen by such as thou,
And Good hath followed-May it now!
(God lets bad instruments
Produce the best events.)

But he, the Man we mourn to-day,
No tyrant was; so mild a sway

In one such weight who bore
Was never known before!

Cool should he be, of balanced powers,
The Ruler of a Race like ours,

Impatient, headstrong, wild,-
The Man to guide the Child!

And this he was, who most unfit
(So hard the sense of God to hit!)
Did seem to fill his Place.
With such a homely face,-

Such rustic manners-speech uncouth(That somehow blundered out the Truth!) Untried, untrained to bear,

The more than kingly Care?

Ay! And his genius put to scorn
The proudest in the purple born,
Whose wisdom never grew
To what, untaught, he knew-

The People, of whom he was one.
No gentleman like Washington,—
(Whose bones, methinks, make room,
To have him in their tomb!)

Bow while the Body passes-Nay,
Fall on your knees, and weep, and pray.
Weep, weep-I would ye might-
Your poor, black faces white!

And, Children, you must come in bands,
With garlands in your little hands,
Of blue, and white, and red,
To strew before the Dead!

So sweetly, sadly, sternly goes
The Fallen to his last repose;
Beneath no mighty dome,
But in his modest Home;

The churchyard where his children rest,
The quiet spot that suits him best;

There shall his grave be made,
And there his bones be laid!

And there his countrymen shall come,
With memory proud, with pity dumb,
And strangers far and near,

For many and many a year!

For many a year, and many an Age,
While History on her ample page
The virtues shall enroll

Of that Paternal Soul!