VI.

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 150 Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head, Wept with the passion of an angry grief: Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 155 And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote: 160 For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 165 How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth, 170 But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity! They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 175 And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; 180 Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind, Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. Nothing of Europe here, Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, 185 Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface And thwart her genial will; Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 190 I praise him not; it were too late; And some innative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate. 195 So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. 200 Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame, 205 The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American.