No lapse of years can render less Her memory's sacred claim; No fountain of forgetfulness Can wet the lips of Fame. A grief alike to wound and heal, A thought to soothe and pain, The sad, sweet pride that mothers feel To her must still remain. Good men and true she has not lacked, And brave men yet shall be; The perfect flower, the crowning fact, Of all her years was he! As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage, What worthier knight was found To grace in Arthur's golden age The fabled Table Round? A voice, the battle's trumpet-note, To welcome and restore; A hand, that all unwilling smote, To heal and build once more; A soul of fire, a tender heart Too warm for hate, he knew The generous victor's graceful part To sheathe the sword he drew. When Earth, as if on evil dreams, Looks back upon her wars, And the white light of Christ outstreams From the red disk of Mars, His fame who led the stormy van Of battle well may cease, But never that which crowns the man Whose victory was Peace. Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore Thy beautiful and brave, Whose failing hand the olive bore, Whose dying lips forgave! Let age lament the youthful chief, And tender eyes be dim; The tears are more of joy than grief That fall for one like him! 1878. BAYARD TAYLOR. I. "And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?" My sister asked our guest one winter's day. Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send! What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She laughed, Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low, Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft." "All these and more I soon shall see for thee!" He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge, And Tromso freezing in its winter sea. He went and came. But no man knows the track Of his last journey, and he comes not back! II. He brought us wonders of the new and old; We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent To him its story-telling secret lent. And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told. His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure, In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought; From humble home-lays to the heights of thought Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure. How, with the generous pride that friendship hath, We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown Of civic honor on his brows pressed down, Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death. And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears Two nations speak, we answer but with tears!