For never yet, with ritual pomp and splendor, In the long heretofore, A heart more loyal, warm, and true, and tender, Has England's turf closed o'er. And if there fell from out her grand old steeples No crash of brazen wail, The murmurous woe of kindreds, tongues, and peoples Swept in on every gale. It came from Holstein's birchen-belted meadows, And from the tropic calms Of Indian islands in the sunlit shadows Of Occidental palms; From the locked roadsteads of the Bothniaii peasants, And harbors of the Finn, Where war's worn victims saw his gentle presence Come sailing, Christ-like, in, To seek the lost, to build the old waste places, To link the hostile shores Of severing seas, and sow with England's daisies The moss of Finland's moors. Thanks for the good man's beautiful example, Who in the vilest saw Some sacred crypt or altar of a temple Still vocal with God's law; And heard with tender ear the spirit sighing As from its prison cell, Praying for pity, like the mournful crying Of Jonah out of hell. Not his the golden pen's or lip's persuasion, But a fine sense of right, And Truth's directness, meeting each occasion Straight as a line of light. His faith and works, like streams that intermingle, In the same channel ran The crystal clearness of an eye kept single Shamed all the frauds of man. The very gentlest of all human natures He joined to courage strong, And love outreaching unto all God's creatures With sturdy hate of wrong. Tender as woman, manliness and meekness In him were so allied That they who judged him by his strength or weakness Saw but a single side. Men failed, betrayed him, but his zeal seemed nourished By failure and by fall; Still a large faith in human-kind he cherished, And in God's love for all. And now he rests: his greatness and his sweetness No more shall seem at strife, And death has moulded into calm completeness The statue of his life. Where the dews glisten and the songbirds warble, His dust to dust is laid, In Nature's keeping, with no pomp of marble To shame his modest shade. The forges glow, the hammers all are ringing; Beneath its smoky vale, Hard by, the city of his love is swinging Its clamorous iron flail. But round his grave are quietude and beauty, And the sweet heaven above,-- The fitting symbols of a life of duty Transfigured into love! 1859. BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day: "I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay. But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free, With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!" John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die; And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh. Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew mild, As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child.