University of Virginia Library

Mute is his eloquence: that silver tongue
On whose sweet accents crowds, admiring, hung,—
Whose fitting words in heavenly beauty fell
On ear and heart, that owned the witching spell;
Whose graceful cadence tides of feeling woke,
As if on earth some loving angel spoke,—
Now rests in silence, like a harp unstrung.
Its notes, unrivalled, on the breezes flung,
Still breathe in living echoes in the air,
As though the master-spirit lingered there.
Who can do justice to so great a name?
Who speak in worthy words his matchless fame?
In varied learning brilliant and profound;
In taste a model, and in judgment sound;
Above ambition's mean and shuffling arts;
Too great to purchase power at public marts;
In life so pure, in motive so unstained,—
He trod with honor all the heights he gained;
His aims so worthy, and his powers so rare,
If first he stood, the people placed him there.
As stands a shaft on some far-reaching plain,
Rising o'er cottage-roofs and waving grain,
Catching the earliest morning's crimson streams,
And latest splendor of the evening beams,
Towering o'er all, it meets the distant sight,
And bathes its summit in the peerless light,—
So, in his country, in his age, alone,
As in the earlier times great Washington;
When foemen trod the stage with haughty stride,
He for his country spoke with manly pride,
Consoled the timid, made the fainting strong,
Stood for the right, and frowned upon the wrong.
As some brave soldier waves his flag on high,
And points his comrades on, to do or die,
Then plants the banner on the topmost height,
Borne through the fiercest whirlwind of the fight,
Himself forgetting, eager but to see
His nation's struggle crowned by victory,—
So toiled in love, so stood, till evening set,
The ripe, the brave, immortal Everett.

Well at his funeral-pomp did wreaths of green
Adorn the places where his life had been,
And garlands deck, with sweet and cheerful bloom,
The opening gateway to his honored tomb.
The full-blown flowers, of pure and spotless white,
Symbols of finished life, a life upright;
The bursting buds, of fresh and bright renown,
Wreathed o'er his name, like an immortal crown,—
Each fragrant blossom round the good and brave,
Telling how virtue lives beyond the grave.
The martial dirge, with deep and solemn strain,
Fell on the ear as falls the gentle rain,
Breathing o'er troubled hearts a healing balm;
While mingling organ-notes prolonged the psalm,
As if the twofold music had been given,
Symbol of closing earth and opening heaven.
Thus when the good man parts from earth and time.
Soaring from toil and pain to joys sublime,
The flickering light of such a world as this
Melts in the splendor of ecstatic bliss;
The mortal, like the setting sunlight, fades,
While glorious visions rise that know no shades;
And earthly music, as the soul ascends,
Dies on the ear, and with the angelic concert blends.