DIED FEBRUARY 16, 1857.

ALOFT upon an old basaltic crag,

In vain, in vain beneath his feet we flung The reddening roses! All in vain we pour'd

The golden wine, and round the shining board

Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung

With the thrice-tripled honors of the

feast!

Scarce the buds wilted and the voices

ceased

Ere the pure light that sparkled in his

eyes,

fend the Pole,

But with a rocky purpose in his soul,
Breasted the gathering snows,
Clung to the drifting floes,

By want beleaguer'd, and by winter chased,

Faded and faded! And the brave young

heart

That the relentless Arctic winds had

robb'd

Of all its vital heat, in that long quest For the lost captain, now within his breast

More and more faintly throbb'd. His was the victory; but as his grasp Closed on the laurel crown with eager clasp,

Death launch'd a whistling dart; And ere the thunders of applause were

done

waste.

Not many months ago we greeted him, Crown'd with the icy honors of the North,

Across the land his hard-won fame went forth,

And Maine's deep woods were shaken limb by limb;

His own mild Keystone State, sedate and prim,

Burst from decorous quiet as he came; Hot Southern lips with eloquence aflame Sounded his triumph. Texas, wild and grim,

Proffer'd its horny hand. The largelung'd West,

From out its giant breast,
And from

Yell'd its frank welcome.

main to main,

Jubilant to the sky,

Thunder'd the mighty cry,

HONOR TO KANE!

In the Olympic race of Science and of

Art!

Like to some shatter'd berg that, pale and lone,

Drifts from the white North to a tropic zone,

And in the burning day
Wastes peak by peak away,
Till on some rosy even
It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he
Tranquilly floated to a Southern sea,
And melted into heaven.

He needs no tears, who lived a noble life; We will not weep for him who died so well,

But we will gather round the hearth, and tell

The story of his strife;

Such homage suits him well,

Better than funeral pomp or passing

bell.

What tale of peril and self-sacrifice!
Prison'd amid the fastnesses of ice,
With hunger howling o'er the wastes of
snow!

Into black thoughts of murder; such the throng

Of horrors bound the hero. High the song Should be that hymns the noble part he play'd!

Sinking himself, yet ministering aid

To all around him. By a mighty will Living defiant of the wants that kill, Because his death would seal his comrades' fate;

Cheering with ceaseless and inventive skill

Those Polar waters, dark and desolate.
Equal to every trial, every fate,

He stands, until Spring, tardy with relief,

Unlocks the icy gate, And the pale prisoners thread the world

through cold,

Her foulest gift to Heaven.

And while all Naples thrills with mute thanksgiving,

The court of England's queen For the dead monster, so abhorr'd while living,

In mourning garb is seen.

With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning;

By lone Edgbaston's side Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining, Bare-headed and wet-eyed!

Silent for once the restless hive of labor, Save the low funeral tread,

Or voice of craftsman whispering to his neighbor

The good deeds of the dead.

For him no minster's chant of the immortals

Rose from the lips of sin; No mitred priest swung back the heavenly portals

To let the white soul in.

But Age and Sickness framed their tearful faces

In the low hovel's door,

places

And Ghettos of the poor.

The pallid toiler and the negro chattel,

The vagrant of the street,

The human dice wherewith in games of battle

The lords of Earth compete,

Touch'd with a grief that needs no outward draping,

All swell'd the long lament,

Of grateful hearts, instead of marble, shaping

His viewless monument!

As from its prison cell,

Praying for pity, like the mournful crying

Of Jonah out of hell.

Not his the golden pen's or lip's persuasion, But a fine sense of right,

And Truth's directness, meeting each occasion

Straight as a line of light.

His faith and works, like streams that intermingle,

In the same channel ran:

The crystal clearness of an eye kept single Shamed all the frauds of man.

dor,

In the long heretofore,

A heart more loyal, warm, and true, and tender,

Has England's turf closed o'er.

And if there fell from out her grand old steeples

No crash of brazen wail,

The murmurous woe of kindreds, tongues, and peoples

Swept in on every gale.

It came from Holstein's birchen-belted meadows,

And from the tropic calms

Of Indian islands in the sun-smit shadows Of Occidental palms;

From the lock'd roadsteads of the Bothnian peasants,

And harbors of the Finn, Where war's worn victims saw his gentle presence

Come sailing, Christ-like, in,

To seek the lost, to build the old waste places, To link the hostile shores

He join'd to courage strong,

And love outreaching unto all God's crea

tures

With sturdy hate of wrong.

Tender as woman; manliness and meekness In him were so allied

That they who judged him by his strength or weakness

Saw but a single side.

Men fail'd, betray'd him, but his zeal seem'd nourish'd

By failure and by fall;

Still a large faith in human-kind he cherish'd,

And in God's love for all.

And now he rests: his greatness and his sweetness

No more shall seem at strife; And Death has moulded into calm completeness

The statue of his life.

Where the dews glisten and the song-birds warble,

His dust to dust is laid,

DEDICATION.

TO IDYLLS OF THE KING.

Thou noble Father of her Kings to be, Laborious for her people and her poor— Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day—

dear,

Perchance as finding there unconsciously

Some image of himself—I dedicate,

I dedicate, I consecrate with tears-
These Idylls.

And indeed He seems to me Scarce other than my own ideal knight, "Who reverenced his conscience as his king;

Whose glory was redressing human wrong; Who spake no slander, no, nor listen'd to it;

Who loved one only, and who clave to her-"

Her-over all whose realms to their last isle,

Commingled with the gloom of imminent

war,

The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse, Darkening the world. We have lost him:

he is gone:

We know him now: all narrow jealousies Are silent; and we see him as he moved, How modest, kindly, all-accomplish'd, wise,

With what sublime repression of himself, And in what limits, and how tenderly; Not swaying to this faction or to that;

To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peaceSweet Nature gilded by the gracious gleam Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art, Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed,

Beyond all titles, and a household name, Hereafter, thro' all times, Albert the Good?

Break not, O woman's heart, but still endure;

Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure, Remembering all the beauty of that star Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made

One light together, but has pass'd, and leaves The Crown a lonely splendor.

May all love, His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee,

The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, The love of all Thy daughters cherish

Thee,

The love of all Thy people comfort Thee, Till God's love set Thee at his side again.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

perch

Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage

ground

For pleasure; but thro' all this tract of

years

Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,

Before a thousand peering littlenesses,

In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,

And blackens every blot: for where is he,
Who dares foreshadow for an only son
A lovelier life, a more unstain'd, than

his?

Or how should England, dreaming of his

sons,

Hope more for these than some inherit

ance

Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine,

bier,

You, who with mocking pencil wont to

trace,

Broad for the self-complaisant British sneer,

His length of shambling limb, his furrow'd face,

His gaunt, gnarl'd hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,

His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, His lack of all we prize as debonair,

Of power or will to shine, of art to please;

You, whose smart pen back'd up the pencil's laugh,

Judging each step as though the way

were plain;