When memorial services were held in honor of my mother, Boston’s great Symphony Hall was crowded to its utmost capacity. Many were the beautiful tributes to her given by men and women of national reputation. None, however, equaled in heartfelt eloquence the speech of Lewis, the distinguished negro lawyer. As he poured out the gratitude of his race to the woman who had written “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” I suddenly realized for the first time what the words meant to the colored people. As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. “To make us, black men and black women, free!” The appeal was to the white men of our country, bidding them share the freedom they so dearly prized with the despised slave. And this triumphant gospel of liberty with its stirring chorus of “Glory, glory, hallelujah” was sung wherever the Northern army went. It was the first proclamation of emancipation. If it moves us, how must it have affected the people to whom it was a prophecy of the longed-for deliverance from bondage. IX MRS. HOWE’S LESSER POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR Her poetic tribute to Frederick Douglass--“Left Behind,” “Our Orders,” “April 19”--“The Flag” followed the second battle of Bull Run--“The Secesh” in the Newport churches--“The First Martyr,” “Our Country,” “Harvard Student’s Song,” “Return”--How “Our Country” lost its musical setting--“The Parricide” written on the day of Lincoln’s funeral to express her reverence. My mother’s natural mode of expressing herself was by poetry rather than by prose. She wrote verses from her earliest years up to the time of her death. It is true that some of her best work took the form of prose in her essays, lectures, and speeches,[37] yet whenever her feelings were deeply moved she turned to verse as the fittest vehicle for her use. We have seen that she began to write poems protesting against human slavery at an early period of her career. Thus her first published “On the Death of the Slave Lewis.” In _Words for the Hour_ we find several poems dealing with slavery, the struggle in Kansas, the attack on Sumner, and kindred subjects. The titles of these and some quotations from them are given in Chapter I. The verses on “Tremont Temple” contain tributes to Sumner and Frederick Douglass, the negro orator. The first two are as follows: volume, _Passion Flowers_ (1853), contained verses Two figures fill this temple to my sight, Whoe’er shall speak, their forms behind him stand; One has the beauty of our Northern blood, And wields Jove’s thunder in his lifted hand. The other wears the solemn hue of Night Drawn darker in the blazonry of pain, Blotting the gaslight’s mimic day, he slings A dangerous weapon, too, a broken chain.