Unconquered will, unslumbering eye, Faith such as bids the martyr die, The prophet's glance, the master's hand To mould the work his foresight planned, These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent For justice, mercy, truth, he spent, First to avenge the traitorous blow, And first to lift the vanquished foe. Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait The pilot of the Pilgrim State! Too large his fame for her alone,-- A nation claims him as her own! A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC HALL, FEBRUARY 8, 1876, IN MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE I. LEADER of armies, Israel's God, Thy soldier's fight is won! Master, whose lowly path he trod, Thy servant's work is done! No voice is heard from Sinai's steep Our wandering feet to guide; From Horeb's rock no waters leap; No Jordan's waves divide; No prophet cleaves our western sky On wheels of whirling fire; No shepherds hear the song on high Of heaven's angelic choir. Yet here as to the patriarch's tent God's angel comes a guest; He comes on heaven's high errand sent, In earth's poor raiment drest. We see no halo round his brow Till love its own recalls, And, like a leaf that quits the bough, The mortal vesture falls. In autumn's chill declining day, Ere winter's killing frost, The message came; so passed away The friend our earth has lost. Still, Father, in thy love we trust; Forgive us if we mourn The saddening hour that laid in dust His robe of flesh outworn. II. How long the wreck-strewn journey seems To reach the far-off past That woke his youth from peaceful dreams With Freedom's trumpet-blast. Along her classic hillsides rung The Paynim's battle-cry, And like a red-cross knight he sprung For her to live or die. No trustier service claimed the wreath For Sparta's bravest son; No truer soldier sleeps beneath The mound of Marathon; Yet not for him the warrior's grave In front of angry foes; To lift, to shield, to help, to save, The holier task he chose. He touched the eyelids of the blind, And lo! the veil withdrawn, As o'er the midnight of the mind He led the light of dawn. He asked not whence the fountains roll No traveller's foot has found, But mapped the desert of the soul Untracked by sight or sound. What prayers have reached the sapphire throne, By silent fingers spelt, For him who first through depths unknown His doubtful pathway felt, Who sought the slumbering sense that lay Close shut with bolt and bar, And showed awakening thought the ray Of reason's morning star. Where'er he moved, his shadowy form The sightless orbs would seek, And smiles of welcome light and warm The lips that could not speak. No labored line, no sculptor's art, Such hallowed memory needs; His tablet is the human heart, His record loving deeds. III. The rest that earth denied is thine,-- Ah, is it rest? we ask, Or, traced by knowledge more divine, Some larger, nobler task?