Personal Poems II, vol 4, part 2 | Page 2

listener then,

"But one brave deed makes no hero;
Tell me what he since hath
been!"
"Still a brave and generous manhood,
Still an honor without stain,

In the prison of the Kaiser,
By the barricades of Seine.
"But dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true;
Peace hath
higher tests of manhood
Than battle ever knew.
"Wouldst know him now? Behold him,
The Cadmus of the blind,

Giving the dumb lip language,
The idiot-clay a mind.
"Walking his round of duty
Serenely day by day,
With the strong
man's hand of labor
And childhood's heart of play.
"True as the knights of story,
Sir Lancelot and his peers,
Brave in
his calm endurance
As they in tilt of spears.
"As waves in stillest waters,
As stars in noonday skies,
All that
wakes to noble action
In his noon of calmness lies.
"Wherever outraged Nature
Asks word or action brave,
Wherever
struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave,--
"Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing
heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own.
"Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
Said I not well
that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here?"
1853.
RANTOUL.

No more fitting inscription could be placed on the tombstone of Robert
Rantoul than this: "He died at his post in Congress, and his last words
were a protest in the name of Democracy against the Fugitive-Slave
Law."
One day, along the electric wire
His manly word for Freedom sped;

We came next morn: that tongue of fire
Said only, "He who spake is
dead!"
Dead! while his voice was living yet,
In echoes round the pillared
dome!
Dead! while his blotted page lay wet
With themes of state
and loves of home!
Dead! in that crowning grace of time,
That triumph of life's zenith
hour!
Dead! while we watched his manhood's prime
Break from the
slow bud into flower!
Dead! he so great, and strong, and wise,
While the mean thousands
yet drew breath;
How deepened, through that dread surprise,
The
mystery and the awe of death!
From the high place whereon our votes
Had borne him, clear, calm,
earnest, fell
His first words, like the prelude notes
Of some great
anthem yet to swell.
We seemed to see our flag unfurled,
Our champion waiting in his
place
For the last battle of the world,
The Armageddon of the race.
Through him we hoped to speak the word
Which wins the freedom of
a land;
And lift, for human right, the sword
Which dropped from
Hampden's dying hand.
For he had sat at Sidney's feet,
And walked with Pym and Vane apart;

And, through the centuries, felt the beat
Of Freedom's march in
Cromwell's heart.

He knew the paths the worthies held,
Where England's best and
wisest trod;
And, lingering, drank the springs that welled
Beneath
the touch of Milton's rod.
No wild enthusiast of the right,
Self-poised and clear, he showed
alway
The coolness of his northern night,
The ripe repose of
autumn's day.
His steps were slow, yet forward still
He pressed where others paused
or failed;
The calm star clomb with constant will,
The restless
meteor flashed and paled.
Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew
And owned the higher ends of
Law;
Still rose majestic on his view
The awful Shape the
schoolman saw.
Her home the heart of God; her voice
The choral harmonies whereby

The stars, through all their spheres, rejoice,
The rhythmic rule of
earth and sky.
We saw his great powers misapplied
To poor ambitions; yet, through
all,
We saw him take the weaker side,
And right the wronged, and
free the thrall.
Now, looking o'er the frozen North,
For one like him in word and act,

To call her old, free spirit forth,
And give her faith the life of fact,--
To break her party bonds of shame,
And labor with the zeal of him

To make the Democratic name
Of Liberty the synonyme,--
We sweep the land from hill to strand,
We seek the strong, the wise,
the brave,
And, sad of heart, return to stand
In silence by a
new-made grave!
There, where his breezy hills of home
Look out upon his sail-white
seas,
The sounds of winds and waters come,
And shape themselves

to words like these.
"Why, murmuring, mourn that he, whose power
Was lent to Party
over-long,
Heard the still whisper at the hour
He set his foot on
Party wrong?
"The human life that closed so well
No lapse of folly now can stain

The lips whence Freedom's protest fell
No meaner thought can now
profane.
"Mightier than living voice his grave
That lofty protest utters o'er;

Through roaring wind and smiting wave
It speaks his hate of wrong
once more.
"Men of the North! your weak regret
Is wasted here; arise and pay

To freedom and to him your debt,
By following where he led the
way!"
1853.
WILLIAM FORSTER.
William Forster, of Norwich, England, died in East Tennessee, in the
1st month, 1854, while engaged in presenting to the governors of the
States of this Union the address of his religious society on the evils of
slavery. He was the relative and coadjutor of the Buxtons, Gurneys, and
Frys; and his whole life, extending al-most to threescore and ten years,
was a pore and beautiful example of Christian benevolence. He had
travelled