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I
NOT with slow, funereal sound | |
| Come we to this sacred ground; | |
| Not with wailing fife and solemn muffled drum, | |
| Bringing a cypress wreath | |
| To lay, with bended knee, | 5 |
| On the cold brows of Death— | |
| Not so, dear God, we come, | |
| But with the trumpets’ blare | |
| And shot-torn battle-banners flung to air, | |
| As for a victory! | 10 |
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| Hark to the measured tread of martial feet, | |
| The music and the murmurs of the street! | |
| No bugle breathes this day | |
| Disaster and retreat!— | |
| Hark, how the iron lips | 15 |
| Of the great battle-ships | |
| Salute the City from her azure Bay! | |
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II
Time was—time was, ah, unforgotten years!— | |
| We paid our hero tribute of our tears. | |
| But now let go | 20 |
| All sounds and signs and formulas of woe: | |
| ’T is Life, not Death, we celebrate; | |
| To Life, not Death, we dedicate | |
| This storied bronze, whereon is wrought | |
| The lithe immortal figure of our thought, | 25 |
| To show forever to men’s eyes, | |
| Our children’s children’s children’s eyes, | |
| How once he stood | |
| In that heroic mood, | |
| He and his dusky braves | 30 |
| So fain of glorious graves!— | |
| One instant stood, and then | |
| Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame, | |
| Which wrapt him, held him, gave him not again, | |
| But in its trampled ashes left to Fame | 35 |
| An everlasting name! | |
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III
That was indeed to live— | |
| At one bold swoop to wrest | |
| From darkling death the best | |
| That death to life can give. | 40 |
| He fell as Roland fell | |
| That day at Roncevaux, | |
| With foot upon the ramparts of the foe! | |
| A pæan, not a knell, | |
| For heroes dying so! | 45 |
| No need for sorrow here, | |
| No room for sigh or tear, | |
| Save such rich tears as happy eyelids know. | |
| See where he rides, our Knight! | |
| Within his eyes the light | 50 |
| Of battle, and youth’s gold about his brow; | |
| Our Paladin, our Soldier of the Cross, | |
| Not weighing gain with loss— | |
| World-loser, that won all | |
| Obeying duty’s call! | 55 |
| Not his, at peril’s frown, | |
| A pulse of quicker beat; | |
| Not his to hesitate | |
| And parley hold with Fate, | |
| But proudly to fling down | 60 |
| His gauntlet at her feet. | |
| O soul of loyal valor and white truth, | |
| Here, by this iron gate, | |
| Thy serried ranks about thee as of yore, | |
| Stand thou for evermore | 65 |
| In thy undying youth! | |
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| The tender heart, the eagle eye! | |
| Oh, unto him belong | |
| The homages of Song; | |
| Our praises and the praise | 70 |
| Of coming days | |
| To him belong— | |
| To him, to him, the dead that shall not die! | |
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