From Sunset Ridge :: :: University of Virginia Library

Friends who greet the crownèd Poet, who detain the passing year
With the love that knows no passing, I attend your summons here.
Had ye suffered me in silence, I had thanked your courteous grace;
Happier yet, in rites so cordial, to have utterance and place.

In your city rows palatial has a mansion stood apart,
Not in aspect nor pretension, single in its saintly heart:
When the tides of greed and traffic swept the limits of the town,
'T was a citadel of virtue, and a shrine of pure renown.

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There the Muse that knew Anacreon, that made Roman Horace great,
Shunning Cæsar's jewelled favors, at the modest fireside sate,
Lit the wintry coals with splendor, turned the deep historic page,
Held the burning lamp of Fancy to the problems of the age.

When the great ideas came singly to the crowded market-place,
Looking wanly for a welcome in each money-getting face,
And the high police of fashion urged the vagrants to give room,
They, our Chief of song encountering, grew speedily at home.

He had many a measure for us: at his forge he wrought twofold,
On the iron shield of Freedom, and the poet's links of gold.
All the while a song was singing, others better knew than he;
For the even stanzas of his life made subtlest melody.

He was a veteran leader ere his forehead gained its snows;

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And still before the pilgrim flock his silver summons goes.
No wild and desert waste he brings, with lurid day and night,
But pastures of serenity, and founts of clear delight.

We have journeyed far to praise him; let us also praise the hour
For the travail throes of Conscience, and the newest birth of power;
Let us praise the faultless victims, and the living, who have bent
O'er the wealth of nature ravished, with a terrible consent.

For Sorrow from the city to the martial camp has fled,
To hunt, with her funereal torch, the features of the dead.
Another and another son the sheaf of Fate doth bind,
But nothing of the thoughts of God, or hope of human kind.

Resurrection in the valley! resurrection on the shore!
When great Justice is established, we shall have our own once more;

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Not like us, unfixed, inconstant in our issues great and small,
But a phalanx set in marble for the future's judgment call.

Long remain the noble Poet, priceless hostage of our love!
Vainly floats the wingèd message from the banquet halls of Jove,
Vainly voices from Valhalla name the champion of the free:
He has pæans yet to utter, he must crown our victory.

When the moment comes to claim him that must come to claim us all,
Hearts that cherish human longings will be darkened by his fall;
But immortal Truth shall welcome her adorer to her breast,
Saying, “Things are changed between us now. On earth I was thy guest.”