James Russell Lowell

Thou shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir That filled our groves with music till the day Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire, And evening listened for thy lingering lay.

But thou hast found thy voice in realms afar Where strains celestial blend their notes with thine; Some cloudless sphere beneath a happier star Welcomes the bright-winged spirit we resign.

How Nature mourns thee in the still retreat Where passed in peace thy love-enchanted hours! Where shall she find an eye like thing to greet Spring's earliest footprints on her opening flowers?

Have the pale wayside weeds no fond regret For him who read the secrets they enfold? Shall the proud spangles of the field forget The verse that lent new glory to their gold?

And ye whose carols wooed his infant ear, Whose chants with answering woodnotes he repaid, Have ye no song his spirit still may hear From Elmwood's vaults of overarching shade?

Friends of his studious hours, who thronged to teach The deep-read scholar all your varied lore, Shall he no longer seek your shelves to reach The treasures missing from his worldwide store?

This singer whom we long have held so dear Was Nature's darling, shapely, strong, and fair; Of keenest wit, of judgment crystal-clear, Easy of converse, courteous, debonair,

Fit for the loftiest or the lowliest lot, Self-poised, imperial, yet of simplest ways; At home alike in castle or in cot, True to his aim, let others blame or praise.

Freedom be found an heirloom from his sires; Song, letters, statecraft, shared his years in turn; All went to feed the nation's altar-fires Whose mourning children wreathe his funeral urn.

He loved New England,—people, language, soil, Unweaned by exile from her arid breast. Farewell awhile, white-handed son of toil, Go with her brown-armed laborers to thy rest.

Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade! Poet and patriot, every gift was thine; Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade, And grateful Memory guard thy leafy shrine!