Classic Poem

Henry! though with thy name a nobler verse,
Of theme heroic, or devotion's prayer,
Might fitlier blend, and more inspire
Than these low, halting strains, and lead the way
To more sublime emotions and entrance
The listening city or the landward town,
That spots afar the toppling mountain's base,—
Still let thy name here stand, of one the name,
Who to no meaner service, nobly walked,
Than virtue's service!
Who, by his virtue,
Might compel, from even a reed so low,
Or a weak life consumed in trivial thought,
Spent on the tricks of show, on time's reprieves,
Fate's half-forgiveness for forgotten deeds;
Might still compel from this dull-sounding reed,
In some strange moment truant to its jar,
One note of music that might touch the stars,
O'ercrown oblivious eras of long night,
And so, half live.
Be, then, to me a muse,
And while the day roars downward in the dust
Of crowded cities, and afar on seas
Uplifted rifts the tall hoar billows,
Mid its surge (surge all its own), the blast,—
May I pursue, with thee, thy peaceful walks;
O'er the low valleys seamed by long-past thrift,
And crags that beetle o'er the base of woods,
Which lift their mild umbrageous fronts to Heaven.
By rock and stream, low hill and surly pitch
Of never-opening oaks, let me essay,
To teach their worth, meed of a poet's life.

Yes! be to me a muse, if so, that thought
Which is in thee, the king, that royal truth
Spurning all commonplace details of lie,—
All far-fetched harrowing curb-stones
Of excuse, that fit men's actions to their
Consciences, and so achieve content
At the expense of honor; all low hopes,
Apologies for self where weakness hides,
And those worst virtues that the cozening world
Pimps on her half-fledged brood; old shells and worms
That saw ere deluged Noah at the plough,—
If so, e'en in its faintest radiation
Thy abiding faith in God's great justice
Might arise, and so might I be just,
And trust in him!
For chiefly here, thy worth,—
Chiefly in this, thy unabated trust,—
Ample reliance on the unceasing
Truth that rules the nether sphere about us,
That drives round the unthinking ball,
And buds the ignorant germs on life and time
Of men and beasts and birds, themselves the sport
Of a most healthy fortune, still unspent,
So that all individual sorrows
Butts for jest, leap down the narrow edge
Of thy colossal wit, and shattered hide,
There, at its base.
Modest and mild, and kind,
Who never spurned the needing from thy door,
(Door of thy heart which is a palace gate);
Temperate and faithful, in whose word, the world
Might trust, sure to repay, unvexed by care,
Unawed by Fortune's nod, slave to no lord
Nor coward to thy peers, long shalt thou live,
Not in this feeble verse, this sleeping age,
But in the roll of Heaven; and at the bar
Of that high court, where virtue is in place!
Then, thou shalt fitly rule, and read the laws
Of that supremer state, writ Jove's behest,
And even old Saturn's chronicle,
Works ne'er Hesiod saw, types of all things
And portraitures of all, whose golden leaves
Roll back the ages' doors, and summon up
Unsleeping truths, by which, wheels on Heaven's prime.