Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/230

POEMS OF OCCASION Of ministrants whom evil times perturb,—

To wrath and melancholy changed their guise.

Yet this was he whose swift imaginings

Engirt fair Liberty from clime to clime,—

From Alp to ocean with an eagle's wings

Pursued her flight, in Harold's lofty rime.

Where the mind's freedom was not, could not be,

That bigot soil he rendered to disdain,

And sought, like Omar in his revelry,

At least the semblance of a joy to gain.

Laughter was at his beck, and wisdom's ruth

Sore-learned from fierce experiences that test

Life's masquerade, the carnival of youth,

The world of man. Then Folly lost her zest,

Yet left undimmed (her valediction sung

With Juan's smiles and tears) his natal ray

Of genius inextinguishably young,—

An Eôs through those mists proclaiming day.

How then, when to his ear came Hellas' cry,

He shred the garlands of the wild night's feast,

And rose a chief, to lead—alas, to die

And leave men mourning for that music ceased!

America! When nations for thy knell

Listened, one prophet oracled thy part:

Now, in thy morn of strength, remember well

The bard whose chant foretold thee as thou art.

Sky, mount, and forest, and high-sounding main,

The storm-cloud's vortex, splendor of the day,

Gloom of the night,—with these abide his strain,—

And these are thine, though he has passed away;

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