Grandeur and glory await around the bed Where sleeps in lowly peace the illustrious dead; He rose a meteor, upon wondering men, But rose in strength, never to set again. A king of men, though born in lowly state, A man sincerely good and nobly great; Tender, but firm; faithful and kind, and true, The Nation's choice, the Nation's Saviour, too; When Liberty and Truth shall reign for evermore, From Oregon to Florida's perpetual May, From Shasta's awful peak to Massachusetts Bay,-- Then our children's children, by the cottage door, In the schoolroom, from the pulpit, at the bar, Shall look up to thee as to a beacon star, And deduce the lesson from thy life and death, That the patriot's lofty courage and the Christian's faith Conquer honors that outweigh ambition's gaudiest prize, Triumph o'er the grave, and open the gates of Paradise. Schooled through life's early hardships to endure, To raise the oppressed, to save and shield the poor; Prudent in counsel, honest in debate, Patient to hear and judge, patient to wait; The calm, the wise, the witty and the proved, Whom millions honored, and whom millions loved; Swayed by no baleful lust of pride or power, The shining pageants of the passing hour, Led by no scheming arts, no selfish aim, Ambitious for no pomp, nor wealth, nor fame, No planning hypocrite, no pliant tool, A high-born patriot, of Heaven's noblest school; Cool and unshaken in the maddest storm, For in the clouds he traced the Almighty's form; Worn with the weary heart and aching head, Worse than the picket, with his ceaseless tread, He kept--as bound by some resistless fate-- His broad, strong hand upon the helm of State; Nor turned, in fear, his heart or hope away, Till on the field his tent a ruin lay. His tent, a ruin; but the owner's name Stands on the pinnacle of human fame, Inscribed in lines of light, and nations see, Through him, the people's life and liberty. What high ideas, what noble acts he taught! To make men free in life, and limb, and thought, To rise, to soar, to scorn the oppressor's rod, To live in grander life, to live for God; To stand for justice, freedom and the right, To dare the conflict, strong in God's own might; The methods taught by Him, by him were tried, And he, to conscience true, a martyr died.