You whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh, Judging each step as though the way were plain; Reckless, so it could point its paragraph, Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain: Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet, Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you? Yes: he had lived to shame me from my sneer, To lame my pencil, and confute my pen:-- To make me own this man of princes peer, This rail-splitter a true-born king of men. My shallow judgment I had learned to rue, Noting how to occasion's height he rose; How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true; How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows. How humble, yet how hopeful he could be: How in good fortune and in ill, the same: Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. He went about his work,--such work as few Ever had laid on head and heart and hand,-- As one who knows, where there's a task to do, Man's honest will must heaven's good grace command; Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow, That God makes instruments to work His will, If but that will we can arrive to know, Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill. So he went forth to battle, on the side That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's, As in his peasant boyhood he had plied His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights,-- The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil, The iron-bark, that turns the lumberer's axe, The rapid, that o'erbears the boatsman's toil, The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks, The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear;-- Such were the deeds that helped his youth to train: Rough culture,--but such trees large fruit may bear, If but their stocks be of right girth and grain. So he grew up, a destined work to do, And lived to do it: four long suffering years, Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through, And then he heard the hisses change to cheers. The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise, And took both with the same unwavering mood: Till, as he came on light, from darkling days, And seem to touch the goal from where he stood, A felon hand, between the goal and him, Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest,-- And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim, Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest! The words of mercy were upon his lips, Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen, When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse To thoughts of peace on earth, good-will to men.