Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday Part 15

Sir, there are times in the history of men and nations when they stand so near the veil that separates mortals from the immortals, time from eternity, and men from G.o.d that they can almost hear the beatings and pulsations of the heart of the Infinite. Through such a time has this nation pa.s.sed.

When two hundred and fifty thousand brave spirits pa.s.sed from the field of honor, through that thin veil, to the presence of G.o.d, and when at last its parting folds admitted the martyr President to the company of those dead heroes of the Republic, the nation stood so near the veil that the whispers of G.o.d were heard by the children of men.

Awe-stricken by his voice, the American people knelt in tearful reverence and made a solemn covenant with him and with each other that this nation should be saved from its enemies, that all its glories should be restored, and, on the ruins of slavery and treason, the temples of freedom and justice should be built, and should survive forever.

It remains for us, consecrated by that great event and under a covenant with G.o.d, to keep that faith, to go forward in the great work until it shall be completed. Following the lead of that great man, and obeying the high behests of G.o.d, let us remember that:

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our G.o.d is marching on.

AN HORATIAN ODE[21]

BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

Not as when some great captain falls In battle, where his country calls, Beyond the struggling lines That push his dread designs

To doom, by some stray ball struck dead: Or in the last charge, at the head Of his determined men, Who must be victors then!

Nor as when sink the civic great, The safer pillars of the State, Whose calm, mature, wise words Suppress the need of swords!--

With no such tears as e'er were shed Above the n.o.blest of our dead Do we to-day deplore The man that is no more!

Our sorrow hath a wider scope, Too strange for fear, too vast for hope,-- A wonder, blind and dumb, That waits--what is to come!

Not more astonished had we been If madness, that dark night, unseen, Had in our chambers crept, And murdered while we slept!

We woke to find a mourning earth-- Our Lares shivered on the hearth,-- To roof-tree fallen,--all That could affright, appall!

Such thunderbolts, in other lands, Have smitten the rod from royal hands, But spared, with us, till now, Each laurelled Caesar's brow!

No Caesar 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 mult.i.tudes 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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!

(G.o.d 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 be he, 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 G.o.d 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!)

A laboring man, with h.o.r.n.y hands, Who swung the axe, who tilled his lands, Who shrank from nothing new, But did as poor men do!

One of the people! Born to be Their curious epitome; To share, yet rise above Their shifting hate and love.

Common his mind (it seemed so then), His thought the thoughts of other men: Plain were his words, and poor-- But now they will endure!

No hasty fool, of stubborn will, But prudent, cautious, pliant, still; Who, since his work was good, Would do it, as he could.

Doubting, was not ashamed to doubt, And, lacking prescience, went without: Often appeared to halt, And was, of course, at fault:

Heard all opinions, nothing loth, And loving both sides, angered both: Was--not like justice, blind, But watchful, clement, kind.

No hero, this, of Roman mould; Nor like our stately sires of old: Perhaps he was not great-- But he preserved that State!

O honest face, which all men knew!

O tender heart, but known to few!

O wonder of the age, Cut off by tragic rage!

Peace! Let the long procession come, For hark!--the mournful, m.u.f.fled drum-- The trumpet's wail afar,-- And see! the awful car!

Peace! Let the sad procession go, While cannon boom, and bells toll slow: And go, thou sacred car, Bearing our woe afar!