No More Learning

GRANT'S DIRGE


I

Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?
And what shall be the music of his dirge?
No single voice may chant the Nation's grief,
No formal strain can give its woe relief.
The pent-up anguish of the loyal wife,
The sobs of those who, nearest in this life,
Still hold him closely in the life beyond;--
These first, with threnody of memories fond.
But look! Forth press a myriad mourners thronging,
With hearts that throb in sorrow's exaltation,
Moved by a strange, impassioned, hopeless longing
To serve him with their love's last ministration.
Make way! Make way, from wave-bound verge to verge
Of all our land, that this great multitude
With lamentation proud albeit subdued,
Deep murmuring like the ocean's mighty surge,
May pass beneath the heavens' triumphal arch!


II

What is the sound we hear?
Never the fall of a tear;
For grief repressed
In every breast
More honors the man we revere.
Rising from East and West,
There echoes afar or near--
From the cool, sad North and the burning South--
A sound long since grown dear,
When brave ranks faced the cannon's mouth
And died for a faith austere:
The tread of marching men,
A steady tramp of feet
That never flinched nor faltered when
The drums of duty beat.
With sable hats whose shade
Falls from the cord of gold
On every time-worn face;
With tattered flags, in black enrolled,
Beneath whose folds they warred of old;
Forward, firmly arrayed,
With a sombre, martial grace;
So the Grand Army moves
Commanded by the dead,
Following him whose name it loves,
Whose voice in life its footsteps led.


III

Those that in the combat perished,--
Hostile shapes and forms of friends,--
Those we hated, those we cherished,
Meet the pageant where it ends.
Flash of steel and tears forgiving
Blend in splendor. Hark, the knell!
Comrades ghostly join the living--
Dreaming, chanting: "All is well. "
They receive the General sleeping,
Him of spirit pure and large:
Him they draw into their keeping
Evermore, in faithful charge.


IV

Pass on, O steps, with your dead, sad note!
For a people's homage is in the sound;
And the even tread, in measured rote,
As a leader is laid beneath the ground,
Rumors the hum of a pilgrim train
That shall trample the earth as tramples the rain,
Seeking the door of the hero's tomb,
Seeking him where he lies low in the gloom,
Paying him tribute of worker and mage,
Through age on age!


V

Tall pine-tree on McGregor's height,
How didst thou grow to such a lofty bearing,
For song of bird or beat of breeze uncaring,
There where thy shadow touched the dying brow?
Were all thy sinewy fibres shaped aright?
Was there no flaw? With what mysterious daring
Didst thou put forth each murmuring, odorous bough
And trust it to the frail support of air?
We only know that thou art now supreme:
We know not how thou grewest so tall and fair.
So from the unnoticed, humble earth arose
The sturdy man whom we, bewailing, deem
Worthy the wondrous name fame's far voice blows.
And lo! his ancient foes
Rise up to praise the plan
Of modest grandeur, loyal trust,
And generous power from man to man,
That lifted him above the formless dust.
O heart by kindliness betrayed,
O noble spirit snared and strayed--
Unmatched, upright thou standest still
As that firm pine-tree rooted on the hill!


VI

No paragon was he,
But moulded in the rough
With every fault and scar
Ingrained, and plain for all to see:
Even as the rocks and mountains are,
Common perhaps, yet wrought of such true stuff
That common nature in his essence grew
To something which till then it never knew;
Ay, common as a vast, refreshing wind
That sweeps the continent, or as some star
Which, 'mid a million, shines out well-defined:
With honest soul on duty bent,
A servant-soldier, President;
Meekest when crowned with victory,
And greatest in adversity!


VII

A silent man whom, strangely, fate
Made doubly silent ere he died,
His speechless spirit rules us still;
And that deep spell of influence mute,
The majesty of dauntless will
That wielded hosts and saved the State,
Seems through the mist our spirits yet to thrill.
His heart is with us!