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Home  »  An American Anthology, 1787–1900  »  699 An Ode

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Thomas BaileyAldrich

699 An Ode

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 battle-ships

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

All sounds and signs and formulas of woe:

’T is 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!