 | [Cleveland, in] The Grover Cleveland Memorial |  |
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CLEVELAND
I
He shrank from praise, this simple-hearted man—Therefore we praise him! Yet, as he would wish,
Chiefly our praise not for the things he did,
But for his spirit in doing. Ah, great heart,
And humble! Great and simple heart! forgive
The homage we may not withhold! Strong soul!
Thou brave and faithful servant of the State,
Who labored day and night in little things,
No less than large, for the loved country's sake,
With patient hand that plodded while others slept!
Who flung to the winds preferment and the future,
Daring to put clear truth to the perilous test,
Fearing no scathe if but the people gained,
And happiest far in sacrifice and loss.
Yes, happiest he when, plain in all men's sight,
He turned contemptuous from the lure of place,
Spurning the laurel that should crown success
Soiled by surrender and a perjured soul.
II
The people! Never once his faith was dimmedIn them his countrymen; ah, never once;
For if doubt shook him, 't was but a fleeting mood;
Though others wavered, never wavered he.
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This way, now that; though love of pelf subdued
The civic conscience, still he held his faith,
Unfaltering, in man's true-heartedness,
And in the final judgment of free men.
III
Firm with the powerful, gentle with the weak,His was the sweetness of the strong! His voice
Took tenderness in speech with little folk,
And he was pitiful of man and brute.
So, for the struggle with high things of state,
He strengthened his own heart with kindly deeds—
His own heart strengthened for stern acts of power
That, fashioned in the secret place of thought,
And in the lonely and the silent shrine
Of conscience, came momentous on the world:
Built stronger the foundations of the State;
Upheld the word of Honor, no whit less
'Twixt nation and nation than 'twixt man and man;
Held righteousness the one law of the world,
And higher set the hopes of all mankind.
IV
Lonely the heart that listens to no voiceSave that of Duty; lonely he how oft
When, turning from the smooth, advised path,
He climbed the chill and solitary way;
Wondering that any wondered, when so clear
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And passion for the right, that fire of heaven
Wherein self dies, and only truth lives on!
Lonely how oft when, with the statesman's art,
He waited for the fullness of the time,
And wrought the good he willed by slow degrees,
And in due order conquered wrong on wrong.
Lonely how oft when 'mid dark disesteem
He moved straightforward to a longed-for goal,
Doing each day the best he might, with vision
Firm fixt above, kept pure by pure intent.
V
Some souls are built to take the shocks of the world,To interpose against blind currents of fate,
Or wrath, or ignorant purpose, a fixt will;
Against the bursting storm a front of calm;
As, when the Atlantic rages, some stern cliff
Hurls back the tempest and the ponderous wave.
So stood he firm when lesser wills were broken;
So he endured when others failed and fell;
Bearing, in silent suffering, the stress,
The blame, the burden of the fateful day.
VI
So single and so simple was his mind,So unperturbed by learned subtleties
And so devout of justice and the right—
His thought, his act, held something of the prime;
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Prophetic; even a touch of nature's force—
Large, elemental, healing; builded well
On the deep bases of humanity.
VII
O strong oak riven! O tower of defenseFallen! O captain of the hosts struck down!
O cries of lamentation—turning swift
To sounds of triumph and great victories!
For unto the hands of one of humble soul
Great trust was laid, and he that trust fulfilled.
So he who died accomplished mighty deeds,
And he who fought has won the infinite peace,
And sleeps enshrined in his own people's hearts,
And in the praise of nations and the world,
And rests immortal among the immortal Great.
| [Cleveland, in] The Grover Cleveland Memorial | |