Kindly Spirit!--Ah, when did treason Bid such a generous nature cease, Mild by temper and strong by reason, But ever leaning to love and peace? A head how sober; a heart how spacious; A manner equal with high or low; Rough but gentle, uncouth but gracious, And still inclining to lips of woe. Patient when saddest, calm when sternest, Grieved when rigid for justice' sake; Given to jest, yet ever in earnest If aught of right or truth were at stake. Simple of heart, yet shrewd therewith, Slow to resolve, but firm to hold; Still with parable and with myth Seasoning truth, like Them of old; Aptest humor and quaintest pith! (Still we smile o'er the tales he told.) Yet whoso might pierce the guise Of mirth in the man we mourn, Would mark, and with grieved surprise, All the great soul had borne, In the piteous lines, and the kind, sad eyes So dreadfully wearied and worn. And we trusted (the last dread page Once turned, of our Dooms-day Scroll), To have seen him, sunny of soul, In a cheery, grand old age. But, Father, 'tis well with thee! And since ever, when God draws nigh, Some grief for the good must be, 'Twas well, even so to die,-- 'Mid the thunder of Treason's fall, The yielding of haughty town, The crashing of cruel wall, The trembling of tyrant crown! The ringing of hearth and pavement To the clash of falling chains,-- The centuries of enslavement Dead, with their blood-bought gains! And through trouble weary and long, Well hadst thou seen the way, Leaving the State so strong It did not reel for a day. And even in death couldst give A token for Freedom's strife-- A proof how republics live, And not by a single life, But the Right Divine of man, And the many, trained to be free,-- And none, since the world began, Ever was mourned like thee. Dost thou feel it, O noble Heart! (So grieved and so wronged below), From the rest wherein thou art? Do they see it, those patient eyes? Is there heed in the happy skies For tokens of world-wide woe? The Land's great lamentations, The mighty mourning of cannon The myriad flags half-mast-- The late remorse of the nations, Grief from Volga to Shannon! (Now they know thee at last.) How, from gray Niagara's shore To Canaveral's surfy shoal-- From the rough Atlantic roar To the long Pacific roll-- For bereavement and for dole, Every cottage wears its weed, White as thine own pure soul, And black as the traitor deed. How, under a nation's pall, The dust so dear in our sight To its home on the prairie passed,-- The leagues of funeral, The myriads, morn and night, Pressing to look their last.