In whose one impact North and South were blent—
His cords yet vital stilled with tone abounding,
His heart-strings sundered by their vibrant sounding?
Too well we feel the import of our fears—
The wide-flashed word, “the South is steeped in tears!”
Fitly she weeps for her chivalric son
Who turned to her, in flush of triumph won,
The filial voice to gain her glad applause—
The golden tongue to plead—to gild her cause.
That spirit note—the music of his speech,
Is silenced now in earthly hearing’s reach;
Snapped is the silvern thread—the resonant soul—
Though severed still its pæans reverberant roll—
All hearts their hope-rung—chants in mourning merge,
All joyous dreams translate into a dirge.
Fallen in hero prime of conscious power
His fame lives on and soothes her anguished hour,
Yields to the land of Calhoun and of Clay
His name as heirloom to her later day,—
A legacy by life’s oblation left,
A breathing solace to a home bereft.
That knightly nature’s gift—that intellect’s grace,
Relieved attrition wrought by clash of race,
That reason poised in sympathy supreme,
Revealed translucent pathos in his theme,
Bade clamor cease—taught candor’s part to cure—
Bade truth appear more true, pure thought more pure.
But is the zenith reached—his record done,
His duty closed beneath meridian sun?
Was it for him like meteor flash to sweep
Athwart the heavens, as vaulting lightnings leap—
On living errand our dimmed orbit cleave—
On mission radiate, yet no message leave?
Ah, no! his flame rose not to fall anon;
His words as phrase to glitter and be gone;
Not evanescent in the minds of men,
His ling’ring oratory speaks again—
An era’s nuncio in a Nation’s view,
An envoy of another South, and new:
For now in prescience ’neath his Southern skies
The grander vision greets our Northern eyes;
The proud mirage he conjured up we see—
His picturing of her potency to be,
Her virile wealth of sun and soil and ore,
Her new-born Freedom’s force—far nobler store.
With sectional lines and warring feuds effaced,
Their racial problems solved—their blots erased—
Full in that vision circumfused shall rise
A symbol that his life-rays crystallize,
For all our state-loves lit in him to stand—
For bonds that Georgia’s Genius lent to all our land.
Henry O’Meara.
ГЕНРИ У. ГРЕЙДИ.
Upon the winds from shores uncharted blown,
That phantom came, stoled in his trailing mists;
He set his cruel gyves upon thy wrists:—
Thine ear was dulled save to his subtle tone:—
He led thee down where fade the paths unknown
In the deep hollows of the Shadow Land:
Love’s tears,—the tendance of her gentle hand,—
Thou didst remember not: her deepest groan
Stayed not thy feet—thine eyes were fixed away
Upon the mountains of some other clime!
Among the noblest, gathered from all time,
In God’s great universe somewhere to-day
He wanders where the cool all-healing trees
Uplift their fronds in fair Champs Elysées.
Henry Jerome Stockard.
Грэм, Северная Каролина.
КТО БЫ ПОЗВАЛ ЕГО ОБРАТНО?
A LIFE-WORK finished: yet, hardly begun:
A course in which courage cowardice undone:
A leader of battles whose life’s setting sun
Leaves no cause unwon.
The scholar and statesman, dear to us all,
As he sleeps his last sleep, though fateful his fall,
Dreams only of peace—to life’s pain past recall—
That, kindred, is all.
The robe he wore with such marvelous grace,
Will be fitted to shoulders made for his place:
Efforts about which none could selfishness trace
Shall still bless his race.
Deeds he has done in humanity’s name
Will outlive the marble upreared to his fame:
Yet, would any one ask him, even through pain,
To live life again?
Belle Eyre.
Бостон, Массачусетс.
ГЕНРИ У. ГРЕЙДИ.
LAMENTED Son of Georgia,
Thou wert New England’s honored guest
In welcome glad, but yesterday,
With charming speech and banquet’s zest.
In glowing life, so recently,
From Plymouth Rock and Bunker’s Hill,
Thy vision swept the Pilgrim’s sea,—
But now in death thy heart is still.
And in thine own dear native clime,
Thou art at rest in early tomb,
Where brightest skies expand sublime,
And choicest flowers forever bloom.
Thy work ere yet at zenith done,
But harvests, o’er thy fertile field,
Are waving in the noonday sun,
Like billows, with abundant yield.
Now fallen, but more glorious,
In peaceful triumph grander far
Than pageant kings victorious,
With bleeding captives, spoils of war.
O, ye bereaved, in mourning bowed,
Around Atlanta’s noble dead!
What woe is in your wailing land;
How hallowed is the ground ye tread!
A joyous home, now desolate,
A circle broken, sad and lone,
A vacant chair in Sable State,
A husband, father, loved one gone.
A widowed mother, mute with grief,
Whose weeping children call in vain,
Their cries and tears bring no relief,
Thou can’st not meet them here again.
And yet, beyond this hour of gloom,
Athwart the sky, the promised bow,
Above these clouds, and o’er thy tomb,
The starry heavens are bending low.
In memory of loving worth,
Sweet thoughts like hidden springs will flow;
Rare flowers in oasis have birth,
As Sorrow’s deserts verdant grow.
With patriotic, burning zeal,
Thy brilliant genius, tongue and pen,
Were wielded for the common weal,
The good of all thy countrymen.
O’er ruins of the effete Old,
Thou wrought to build a better New,
Whose peerless glories might unfold,
As North and South together grew.
Thou longed to note accordant band
Of Sister States through future years,
A Union for the world to stand
With little aid of blood and tears.
Of such a spirit, He who taught
Eternal Truth in Galilee;
The human and divine in-wrought
With perfect love and charity.
And so thy deeds will grow in grace,
They are exalted, wise and pure,
For freedom and the human race,
And in our hearts will long endure.
For thee nor local, fleeting fame,
But for all nations, space and time;
Around thy lofty, shining name,
Unfading laurels we entwine.
G. W. Lyon.
Сидар-Рапидс, Айова, 18 января 1890 г.
ЧТО СОЗДАЛ МАСТЕР.
THE Master made a perfect instrument to sound His praise,
It breathed forth glorious notes for many days,—
Chords of great strength, tones of soft melody,
Grand organ anthems—bird-like minstrelsy;
Its final burst of music—the Master’s master-stroke
Fell on the world—and then the spent strings broke.
Mel R. Colquitt.
В АТЛАНТЕ, РОЖДЕСТВО, 1889 Г.
I.
O PROUD Gate City of the South, reborn,
Risen, a phœnix, from war’s fiery flood—
Why draped in gloom, this precious natal morn
Of Him crowned martyr for earth’s peace and good?
Set in the faces of your old and young,
Is seen the sorrow, ruthless Fate hath sprung!
II.
Your prince lies stark amid the stately towers,
Which he, strong leader in a radiant day,
Had helped to build, when Georgia’s unbound powers
Amazed the world and held majestic sway.
Grady is gone, like meteor flashing bright
Across the canopy of star-gemmed night!
III.
Lift him, with gentleness, and bear him hence!
Keep slow, deliberate pace unto the grave
Which long must be a spot where reverence,
Halting its footsteps, will his laurel wave!
Impulsive youth, in halls of fierce debate,
His counsels heed, his spirit emulate!
Henry Clay Lukens.
Джерси-Сити-Хайтс, Нью-Джерси.
ПАМЯТИ ГЕНРИ ВУДФИНА ГРЕЙДИ.
From the “West Shore” Portland, Oregon.
I.
AMID the wrecks of private fortunes and
The fall of commonwealths, he saw arise
A stricken people, and, with mournful eyes,
Beheld the smoke of war bedim their land,
And in its folds the fragments of a band
Erst bound, as by grim Fate, to exercise
Their judgments in the wrong and sacrifice
Against the measures Providence had planned.
Unconquered still, he saw the Southern folk,
Though awed and vanquished by the deadly jar
Of war’s deep thunder belching forth, “Ye must!”
In love this Master sought to lift the yoke
Of ignorance from the Southland, and to star
Its night with those same stars trailed in its dust!
II.
Unto the North he, as a brother, came,
And in his heart the great warm South he brought,
And as he stood and oped his mouth he wrought
The miracle of setting hearts aflame,
That leaped to crown him orator of fame,
Since in his own emboldened hand he’d caught
The golden chain of love, by many sought,
To bind our Union something more than name.
But hark! The while his eloquence did charm
The Nation’s ear, the lightnings flashed along
The wires the weeping news, “He is no more!”
Brave seer! Thou didst both North and South disarm!
Leap, lightnings, from your wires, the clouds among,
And flash his eulogy the heavens o’er!
Lee Fairchild.
Seattle, January 14, 1890.
ЮЖНЫЙ РОЖДЕСТВЕНСКИЙ ДЕНЬ.
Paraphrased from Henry W. Grady’s Editorial.
NO man or woman living now
Shall e’er again behold
A Christmas day so royal clad,
In robes of purpled gold,
As yesterday sank down to rest,
In perfect, rounded triumph in the West.
A winter day it was—yet shot
With sunshine to the core—
Enchantment’s spell filled all the scene
With power unknown before—
And he who walked abroad could feel
Its subtle mast’ry o’er him softly steal.
Its beauty prodigal he saw—
He breathed elixir pure—
Twas bliss to strive with reaching hand
Its rapture to secure,
And bathe with open fingers where
The waves of warmth and freshness pulsed the air.
The hum of bees but underrode
The whistling wings outspread
Of wild geese, flying through the sky,
As Southwardly they sped—
While embered pale, in drowsy grates,
The fires slept lightly, as when life abates.
And people, marveling, out of doors,
Watched in sweet amaze
The soft winds’ wooing of delight,
Upon this day of days—
Their wooing of the roses fair—
Their kissing lilies, with a lover’s air.
God’s benediction, with the day,
Slow dropping from the skies,
Came down the waiting earth to bless,
And give it glad surprise—
His smile, its light—a radiant flood,
That upward bore the prayer of gratitude.
And through and through its stillness all—
And through its beauty too—
To every heart came mute appeal,
To live a life more true—
And every soul invoking then,
With promise—“Peace on earth—good will to men.”
N.C. Thompson.
ПАМЯТИ ГЕНРИ У. ГРЕЙДИ.
SHALL we not mourn for those who pass
Like meteors from the midnight sky,
From out the gleaming heights of fame,
As those who for their country die?
Who die, and sleep in dreamless slumber,
Where sunbeams like a blessing shed
Their glories, and the rain-drops, falling,
Weep ever o’er our Southern dead.
Of silvery tongue, and heart of fire,
And grace of manhood, what is left?
A voiceless grief—a tear—a sigh,
A nation of her son bereft.
Great soul with eloquence o’erflowing,
In rhythmic measures sweet and grand,
Great heart whose mission was a message
Of peace and good will, thro’ the land.
O tongue of flame by truth inspired!
Tho’ thou art silent, and we never
May hear again thy stirring strains,
They’ll echo in our halls forever.
Thy life was like a rushing river,
That proudly bore upon its breast
Our highest hopes unto a haven,
Where heroes dwell, and patriots rest.
Sleep well! tho’ thou art gone, the grave
Holds but the outward earthly shrine,
That held within its clay-cold breast
The sacred spark of life divine.
Sleep well! immortal, unforgotten,
Where buds and blossoms round thee blow,
And the soft fires of Southern sunsets
In glory gild thy couch below.
Elizabeth J. Hereford.
Даллас, Техас.
ГЕНРИ У. ГРЕЙДИ.
IF Death had waited till the grateful Land
He championed with his life had bent and crowned,
With a proud, civic garland of command
That knightly brow, with laurels freshly bound!
Yet he cared not for crowds—this wrestler strong;
If down the arena swept some warm, wild breath
Of his People’s praise—this bore his soul along,
This came with sweetness in the midst of death,
For love was more to him than crown or wreath.
Ah! half her Sun is stricken from the South,
Since he is dead—her tropic-hearted one,—
Will the pomegranate flower’s vivid mouth
Open to drink the dews when Frost is done?
Will the gay red-bird flash like winged flame,
The mocking-bird awake its thrilling lyre?
Will Spring and Song—will Love ev’n seem the same,
Now he is gone—the spirit whose light and fire
And pulsing sweetness were like Spring to make,
The gray earth young?—will Light and Love awake,
And he still sleep?—and we weep for his sake!
Mary E. Bryan.
СТАРОЕ И НОВОЕ.
NOT to the beauteous maid who weeps
And wails in broken numbers,
Where ’neath the solemn cypress sleeps
The brave in dreamless slumbers.
Oh, not to her whose pallid cheeks
With form all bent and broken
An utter loss of promise speaks
And perished hopes betoken.
Ah, not to her!—the sorrowing maid
Who sighs so sad and lowly,
Where our “Lost Cause and Cross” were laid,
Keeping their memories holy.
Ah, not to her whose sons have passed
To rest in peace sedately,
To glory and the grave at last,
In soldier phalanx stately;
That sleep beneath the mountain sod
Or by the murmuring rivers,
Beneath the blooming prairie clod
Or where the sea breeze quivers.
The past is God’s, the future ours,
And o’er our plains and mountains
The young spring comes with thousand flowers
And music in bright fountains.
Oh, let the bugle and the drum
Pass to the halls of glory,
Where time has made our passions dumb
And fame has told its story.
But let no High Priest of despair
Wed us to shades of sorrow,
Or bind our younger limbs and fair
In all our bright to-morrow.
Oh, not for her our younger years
Whose beauty bloomed to perish—
Enough a whole decade of tears,
Sad memories that we cherish.
But thou, sweet maid, whose gentle wand
Doth bring the May-time blossom—
We kiss thy lips and clasp thy hand
And press thy beauteous bosom.
Thou who dost teach us to forgive
The red hand of our brother,
And binds us closer while we live
To Country, as a mother.
Ah, wedded to this Newer South
We’ll find peace, love and glory,
And in some future singer’s mouth
Freedom will boast the story.
J. M. Gibson.
Vicksburg, January 14, 1890.
ГЕНРИ У. ГРЕЙДИ.
From the “Boston Globe.”
FAIR brow grief-clouded, blue eyes dark with tears,
The young South sighed above her hero’s bier,
“Wear these my favors in the lists of Death,”
And o’er his calm breast scattered immortelles.
What Launcelot of old in jousts and field
Did bravely for the right with pen and voice,
With mind broad-reaching and with soul intense,
Did this young champion wisely for the truth.
From the loud echoes of rude, hideous war
He caught the murmur of a far-off peace;
Through the fierce hatred of embittered foes
He saw the faint day-star of amity;
O’er the ruin of the things that were
Beheld the shadowy Angel of new life,
And, chosen from the whirl of troublous days,
With soul knit up in valor, mind aflame,
Stood forth the knight and prophet of good will,
Of peace with dignity, of manhood’s strength
Sustaining brother’s love, of industry
That keeps an equal pace with building thought,
Of old things gracious yielding place to new.
And from the mists, responsive to his call,
Came forth in radiance, virgin-robed,
The starry maiden of sweet hope, and smiled—
Put forth her willing palm to meet his own,
And walked with him the valleys of Re-birth,
And where they passed the earth grew musical,
And long-hushed voices from the caves of Doubt
Swelled into melody of joyous faith;
While from the forests of the North swept down
The pæan of the Pines, and from the South
The murmur of the Everglades up stole
The diapason perfecting. Stark fields
That fever had burned out revived; and marts
Where brooded weird decay, and mills at rest,
The forge in blackness rusting, and the shop,
The school, the church, the forum, and the stage
Thrust off their desolation and despair
To feel again the energy of life
And know once more the happiness of man.
Such was his doing who was brave for truth;
Such is the legacy he leaves to pride;
And, though the New South mourn her fallen knight,
His soul and word move ever hand in hand
Adown the smiling valleys of Re-birth,
That still shall bud and flower because of him
And grow fair garlands for man’s Brotherhood.
E. A. B.
НА МОГИЛЕ ГРЕЙДИ.
“WE live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breadths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial;
We should count time by heart-throbs; he most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best”—
The Poet, dreaming in divinest mood,
Scanning the future with a Prophet’s eyes,
Beheld the outlines of the Perfect Man
Take shape before the vision of his soul;
And though the beauteous phantom could not stay,
He caught its grace and glory in the song
Wherein he praises the Ideal Man
Of whom he dreamed, and whom the world should know,
When in the teeming womb of Time the years
Had ripened him, mature in every part.
While yet the world, expectant of this man,
Watched, mutely wondering when and whence would come
This radiant one, this full-bloom, fairest flower
Of manhood’s excellence, which Heaven itself
Were fain to keep, to crown the angels with—
God granting unto Earth but one or two
Within the cycle of a century—
Lo! suddenly, from out the realm of Dreams,
The splendid Vision of the musing bard,
His perfect and ideal Man, came forth,
And walked within the common light of day,
A living, breathing Presence—Henry Grady!
Did not this marvelously gifted man,
Who trod with us the old, familiar paths,
And glorified them daily with strange light,
As if a god were dwelling in our midst,
Measure, full-length, the stature of the man
The Poet quarried from the mines of Thought?
What though his years were brief, did he not fill
Their precious brevity with glorious deeds,
Till he outlived the utmost lives of men
Of lesser mold, of feebler fibred souls?
Garnering betwixt his cradle and his grave
The ripened harvests of a century!
Did he not live in thoughts as flowers live
In sunshine, filling the whole world with light,
And the celestial fragrance of his soul!
Did he not live in feelings so refined,
That every heart-string into music woke,
Though touched more lightly than a mother’s mouth
Would touch the sleep-sealed eyelids of her babe!
Ah, were the throbs of his great, loving heart,
Meet as a measure for his span of life?
Would not such measure circle all the world,
And find no end, save in infinity?
If he lives most—(and who shall dare deny
A truth which is as true as God is true?)
If he doth live the most who thinks the most,
Who feels the noblest, and who acts the best,
Thou, O my friend! didst to the utmost mete
Of transitory mortal life live out
Thine earthly span, though to our eyes thy life
Seems like the flashing of a falling star,
Which for a moment fills the heavens with light,
And vanishes forever.
Nay, not so—
The Poet’s words are thy best epitaph!