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(From Under the Old Elm)
BENEATH our consecrated elm | |
| A century ago he stood, | |
| Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood | |
| Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm | |
| The life foredoomed to wield our rough-hewn helm:— | 5 |
| From colleges, where now the gown | |
| To arms had yielded, from the town, | |
| Our rude self-summoned levies flocked to see | |
| The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he. | |
| No need to question long; close-lipped and tall, | 10 |
| Long trained in murder-brooding forests lone | |
| To bridle others’ clamors and his own, | |
| Firmly erect, he towered above them all, | |
| The incarnate discipline that was to free | |
| With iron curb that armed democracy. | 15 |
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| A motley rout was that which came to stare, | |
| In raiment tanned by years of sun and storm, | |
| Of every shape that was not uniform, | |
| Dotted with regimentals here and there; | |
| An army all of captains, used to pray | 20 |
| And stiff in fight, but serious drill’s despair, | |
| Skilled to debate their orders, not obey; | |
| Deacons were there, selectmen, men of note | |
| In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round with woods, | |
| Ready to settle Freewill by a vote, | 25 |
| But largely liberal to its private moods; | |
| Prompt to assert by manners, voice, or pen, | |
| Or ruder arms, their rights as Englishmen, | |
| Nor much fastidious as to how and when: | |
| Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create | 30 |
| A thought-staid army or a lasting state: | |
| Haughty they said he was, at first; severe; | |
| But owned, as all men own, the steady hand | |
| Upon the bridle, patient to command, | |
| Prized, as all prize, the justice pure from fear, | 35 |
| And learned to honor first, then love him, then revere. | |
| Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint | |
| And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint. | |
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| Musing beneath the legendary tree, | |
| The years between furl off: I seem to see | 40 |
| The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage through, | |
| Dapple with gold his sober buff and blue, | |
| And weave prophetic aureoles round the head | |
| That shines our beacon now nor darkens with the dead. | |
| O man of silent mood, | 45 |
| A stranger among strangers then, | |
| How art thou since renowned the Great, the Good, | |
| Familiar as the day in all the homes of men! | |
| The wingéd years, that winnow praise and blame, | |
| Blow many names out: they but fan to flame | 50 |
| The self-renewing splendors of thy fame. | |
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