Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris, Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass, Passing the yellow spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen. Passing the apple tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, Night and day journeys a coffin. THE SECOND SPOKESMAN Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop’d flags, with the cities draped in black, With the show of the states themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing, With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and unbared heads.... Here, coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac. FOUR VOICES From the deep secluded recesses, From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still, Came the carol of a bird. FREEDOM Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death. Prais’d be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. THE FIRST SPOKESMAN The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee, O base and well-veil’d death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. THE SECOND SPOKESMAN Over the tree tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves and the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death. FOUR VOICES Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, And I with my comrades there in the night. FREEDOM Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his dear sake, Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim. THE CHOIR AND ALL THE PEOPLE (_Very softly._) That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. [_The light goes again. The crowd goes off. The bier is carried away under cover of the darkness and to the far sound of the negroes who sing the same song which first we heard from them._] _Part Four_ [Illustration] “_Our Own Day_” [_The Chronicler rises in light._] THE CHRONICLER