FOULLY ASSASSINATED, APRIL, 1865. -- INSCRIBED TO PUNCH. NO glittering chaplet brought from other lands! As in his life, this man, in death, is ours; His own loved prairies o'er his "gaunt gnarled hands" Have fitly drawn their sheet of summer flowers! What need hath he now of a tardy crown, His name from mocking jest and sneer to save? When every ploughman turns his furrow down As soft as though it fell upon his grave. He was a man whose like the world again Shall never see, to vex with blame or praise; The landmarks that attest his bright, brief reign Are battles, not the pomps of galadays! The grandest leader of the grandest war That ever time in history gave a place; What were the tinsel flattery of a star To such a breast! or what a ribbon's grace! 'Tis to th' man, and th' man's honest worth, The nation's loyalty in tears up-springs; Through him the soil of labor shines henceforth High o'er the silken broideries of kings. The mechanism of external forms -- The shrifts that courtiers put their bodies through, Were alien ways to him -- his brawny arms Had other work than posturing to do! Born of the people, well he knew to grasp The wants and wishes of the weak and small; Therefore we hold him with no shadowy clasp -- Therefore his name is household to us all. Therefore we love him with a love apart From any fawning love of pedigree -- His was the royal soul and mind and heart -- Not the poor outward shows of royalty. Forgive us then, O friends, if we are slow To meet your recognition of his worth -- We're jealous of the very tears that flow From eyes that never loved a humble hearth. |