ICHABOD.
[_]
This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and forecast
of evil consequences which I felt on reading the seventh of
March speech of Daniel Webster in support of the “compromise,”
and the Fugitive Slave Law. No partisan or personal enmity dictated
it. On the contrary my admiration of the splendid personality
and intellectual power of the great Senator was never
stronger than when I laid down his speech, and, in one of the saddest
moments of my life, penned my protest. I saw, as I wrote,
with painful clearness its sure results,—the Slave Power arrogant
and defiant, to strengthened and encouraged to carry out its
scheme for the extension of its baleful system, or the dissolution
of the Union, the guaranties of personal liberty in the free States
broken down, and the whole country made the hunting-ground of
slave-catchers. In the horror of such a vision, so soon fearfully
fulfilled, if one spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of stern
and sorrowful rebuke.
But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a
common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity
of judgment. Years after, in
The Lost Occasion I gave utterance
to an almost universal regret that the great statesman did not
live to see the flag which he loved trampled under the feet of
Slavery, and, in view of this desecration, make his last days glorious
in defence of “Liberty and Union, one and inseparable.”
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!
Revile him not, the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!
Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.
Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven!
Let not the land once proud of him
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.
But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.
Of all we loved and honored, naught
Save power remains;
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!
Then, pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!
1850.