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!) A laboring man, with horny 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 thoughts the thoughts of other men: Plain were his words, and poor-- But now they will endure!