Each bore his burden: but he all burdens bore, Whose sad heart folded all the sufferers in; While with a master’s steady hand he played, Mournful but undismayed, That giant game where it was pain to win. Ah, pain to win, but double death to lose! He saw the end, he knew the thing at stake Was Manhood’s captain-jewel: he could not choose But play the grim game out, though that great heart should break. He smiled, as he had need To keep him sane: Sad Lincoln laughed! on mountain-side or plain Not any soldier did a braver deed. VI Last, all his duty done,-- All the dark bondmen freed, The long-sought leader found, the piteous victory won,-- Arrived for him one hour of April sun Wherein he breathed free as the forest again, In glad goodwill to men Nursing some vast forgiveness in his mind. Then--all turned blank and blind. Dare we remember the tragic lilac-time Crimsoned with that mad crime? Nay, hush! Ye have heard how sacrifice must close The supreme service; ’tis the way God chose. VII Ah, haply we, the native-born, And sprung of grandsires native too, Proud of soul this stately morn Would with his fame one race, one land indue; Would claim him ours, and ours alone, Flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, Inseparably our own! Ours by the English name, And that old England whence his forebears came, And that dear English of his tongue and pen; Mightier successor of our most mighty men; Ours, by his birth beneath our western sky, Ours, by the flag he died to save, Ours, by the home-fields of his labor, and by The home-earth of his grave! VIII But hark! as if some league-long barrier broke To let wide waters in tumultuously, I hear the voices of the outland folk From sea to sea--yea, rolling over-sea: “You shall not limit his large glory thus, You shall not mete his greatness with a span! This man belongs to us, Gentile and Jew, Teuton and Celt and Russ And whatso else we be! This man belongs to Man! And never, till a flood of love efface The hard distrusts that sever race from race, Comes his true jubilee! Never, till all the wars, Yea, even the noble wars that strive to peace, With all the thunder of all the drums shall cease, And all the booming guns on all the brother-shores; Never, till that worst strife of every day, More bitter-sordid than the clash of steel, By some new solving word our lips may learn to say, Be wholly done away, Deep-drowned in brotherhood, quenched in the common weal, Ah, never, till every spirit shall stand up free, Comes the great Liberator’s jubilee!” GREENCASTLE JENNY A BALLAD OF ’SIXTY-THREE