The hush of the sick-room; the muffled tread; Fond, questioning eye; mute lip, and listening ear; Where wife and children watch 'twixt hope and fear, A father's, husband's living-dying bed!-- The hush of a great nation, when its head Lies stricken! Lo! along the streets he's borne, Pale, through rank'd crowds, this gray September morn, 'Mid straining eyes, sad brows unbonneted, And reverent speechlessness!--a "people's voice!" Nay but a peoples silence! through the soul Of the wide world its subtler echoes roll, O brother nation England for her part Is with thee: God willing she whose heart Throbbed with thy pain shall with thy joy rejoice. SEPT. 6, 1881. _London Spectator._ AFTER THE BURIAL. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Fallen with autumns falling leaf, Ere yet his summers noon was past, Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief,-- What words can match a woe so vast? And whose the chartered claim to speak The sacred grief where all have part, When sorrow saddens every cheek, And broods in every aching heart? Yet nature prompts the burning phrase That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall, The loud lament, the sorrowing praise, The silent tear that love lets fall. In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme, Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir,-- The singers of the new born time, And trembling age with outworn lyre. No room for pride, no place for blame-- We fling our blossoms on the grave, Pale, scentless, faded,--all we claim, This only,--what we had we gave. Ah, could the grief of all who mourn Blend in one voice its bitter cry, The wail to heaven's high arches borne Would echo through the caverned sky. II. O happiest land whose peaceful choice Fills with a breath its empty throne! God, speaking through thy people's voice, Has made that voice for once his own. No angry passion shakes the State Whose weary servant seeks for rest,-- And who could fear that scowling hate Would strike at that unguarded breast? He stands, unconscious of his doom, In manly strength, erect, serene,-- Around him summer spreads her bloom: He falls,--what horror clothes the scene! How swift the sudden flash of woe Where all was bright as childhood's dream! As if from heaven's ethereal bow Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam. Blot the foul deed from history's page,-- Let not the all-betraying sun Blush for the day that stains an age When murder's blackest wreath was won. III. Pale on his couch the sufferer lies, The weary battle-ground of pain; Love tends his pillow, science tries Her every art, alas! in vain.