THE DEAD. A DIRGE. I LOVE the dead! The precious spirits gone before, And waiting on that peaceful shore To meet with welcome looks and kiss me yet once more. I love the dead! And fondly doth my fancy paint Each dear one, wash'd from earthly taint, By patience and by hope made a most gentle saint. O glorious dead! Without one spot upon the dress Of your ethereal loveliness, Ye linger round me still with earnest will to bless. Enfranchised dead! Each fault and failing left behind And nothing now to chill or bind, How gloriously ye reign in majesty of mind! O royal dead! The resting, free, unfettered dead, The hoping, waiting, calm, the happy, changeless dead! I love the dead! And well forget their little ill, In all their best of words and deeds and ways and will. I bless the dead! Their good, half choked by this world's weeds, Is blooming now in heavenly meads, And ripening golden fruit, of all those early seeds. I trust the dead! They understand me frankly now, There are no clouds on heart or brow, But spirit, reading spirit, answereth glow for glow. I praise the dead! All their tears are wiped away, Their darkness turned to perfect day,— How blessed are the dead, how beautiful be they! O gracious dead! That watch me from your paradise With happy tender starlike eyes, Let your sweet influence rain me blessings from the skies. Yet, helpless dead, Vainly my yearning nature dares Such unpremeditated prayers; All vain it were for them, as even for me their's. Immortal dead! Ye in your lot are fixed as fate, And man or angel is too late To beckon back by prayer one change upon your state. O, godlike dead, Ye that do rest, like Noah's dove, Fearless I leave you to the love Of him who gave you peace to bear with you above! And ye, the dead Godless on earth, and gone astray, Alas, your hour is past away, The Judge is just; for you it now were sin to pray. Still, all ye dead, First may be last and last be first, Charity counteth no man curst, But hopeth still in Him whose love would save the worst. Therefore, ye dead, I love you, be ye good or ill, For God, our God, doth love me still, And you He loved on earth with love that naught could chuil. And some, just dead, To me on earth most deeply dear, Who loved and nursed and blest me here, I love you with a love that casteth out all fear. Come near me, Dead! In spirit come to me, and kiss, A few, few years or days and I too feed on bliss! TO AMERICA: I. COLUMBIA, child of Britain, noblest child, - I praise the growing lustre of thy worth, Yes, we are one; the glorious days of yore, And thou hast rights in Milton, ev'n as we, Thou too canst claim "sweet Shakspeare's wood-notes wild,"- II. I blame thee not, as other some have blam'd, - That diadems thy head! - go on, go on, Thou new Themistocles for enterprise, Go on and prosper, Acolyte of fate! And, precious child, dear Ephraim, turn those eyes, For thee thy Mother's yearning heart doth wait. III. Let aged Britain claim the classic Past, A shining track of bright and mighty deeds, For thee I prophesy the Future vast Whereof the Present sows its giant seeds: O'er poor old England; yet a few dark years The mother in the child; to all the West IV. Thou noble scion of an ancient root, Born of the forest-king! spread forth, spread forth, — From sea to sea, from South to icy North, It must ere long be thine, through good or ill, To stretch thy sinewy boughs: Go, wondrous child! The glories of thy destiny fulfil; Remember then thy mother in her age, Shelter her in the tempest, warring wild, Stand thou with us when all the nations rage So furiously together! we are one: And, through all time, the calm historic page Shall tell of Britain blest in thee her son. |