And breathing on the base rejected clay

Till each dark face shone mystical and grand

Against the breaking day;

And lo, the shard the potter cast away

Was grown a fiery chalice crystal-fine,

Fulfilled of the divine

Great wine of battle wrath by God's ring-finger stirred.
Then upward, where the shadowy bastion loomed
Huge on the mountain in the wet sea light,

Whence now, and now, infernal flowerage bloomed,
Bloomed, burst, and scattered down its deadly seed-
They swept and died like freemen on the height,
Like freemen, and like men of noble breed;
And when the battle fell away at night

By hasty and contemptuous hands were thrust
Obscurely in a common grave with him
The fair-haired keeper of their love and trust.
Now limb doth mingle with dissolvèd limb

In nature's busy old democracy

To flush the mountain laurel when she blows

Sweet by the southern sea,

And heart with crumbled heart climbs in the rose:

The untaught hearts with the high heart that knew

This mountain fortress for no earthly hold

Of temporal quarrel, but the bastion old
Of spiritual wrong,

Built by an unjust nation sheer and strong,
Expugnable but by a nation's rue

And bowing down before that equal shrine
By all men held divine,

Whereof his band and he were the most holy sign.

AN ODE1

On the Unveiling of the Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, May 31, 1897

BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

I

Not with slow, funereal sound

Come we to this sacred ground;

Not with wailing fife and solemn muffled drum,
Bringing a cypress wreath

To lay, with bended knee,
On the cold brows of Death-
Not so, dear God, we come,
But with the trumpets' blare
And shot-torn battle-banners flung to air,
As for a victory!

Hark to the measured tread of martial feet,
The music and the murmurs of the street!
No bugle breathes this day

Disaster and retreat!

Hark, how the iron lips

Of the great battleships

Salute the City from her azure Bay!

II

Time was-time was, ah, unforgotten years!-
We paid our hero tribute of our tears.

But now let go

'By permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

All sounds and signs and formulas of woe:
'Tis Life, not Death, we celebrate;
To Life, not Death, we dedicate
This storied bronze, whereon is wrought
The lithe immortal figure of our thought,
To show forever to men's eyes,

Our children's children's children's eyes,
How once he stood

In that heroic mood,

He and his dusky braves
So fain of glorious graves!-

One instant stood, and then

Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame, Which wrapt him, held him, gave him not again, But in its trampled ashes left to Fame

An everlasting name!

III

That was indeed to live-
At one bold swoop to wrest
From darkling death the best
That death to life can give.
He fell as Roland fell
That day at Roncevaux,

With foot upon the ramparts of the foe!
A pæan, not a knell,

For heroes dying so!

No need for sorrow here,

No room for sigh or tear,

Save such rich tears as happy eyelids know.

See where he rides, our Knight!
Within his eyes the light

Of battle, and youth's gold about his brow;
Our Paladin, our Soldier of the Cross,
Not weighing gain with loss-
World-loser, that won all
Obeying duty's call!
Not his, at peril's frown,
A pulse of quicker beat;
Not his to hesitate

And parley hold with Fate,

But proudly to fling down
His gauntlet at her feet.

O soul of loyal valor and white truth,
Here, by this iron gate,

Thy serried ranks about thee as of yore,
Stand thou for evermore

In thy undying youth!

The tender heart, the eagle eye!

Oh, unto him belong

The homages of Song;

Our praises and the praise

Of coming days

To him belong

To him, to him, the dead that shall not die!

THE BATTLEFIELD

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and armèd hands

Encountered in the battle-cloud.

Ah! never shall the land forget

How gushed the life-blood of her brave-
Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save.

Now all is calm, and fresh, and still;
Alone the chirp of flitting bird,

And talk of children on the hill,

And bell of wandering kine are heard.

No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain; Men start not at the battle-cry,

Oh, be it never heard again!

Soon rested those who fought; but thou
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.

A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year,
A wild and many-weaponed throng
.Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,

And blench not at thy chosen lot.

The timid good may stand aloof,

The sage may frown-yet faint thou not.

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,

The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;

For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.