 | Poems and verses by Mary Mapes Dodge |  |
51
ELBERON.
(1881.)
I. JULY.
We watched the little children by the seaTempting the wave with mimic forts of sand;
Hillock and pit they modeled in their glee,
Laughing to see them leveled on the strand.
Deep was the music of the breakers' roar,
And bright the spray they tossed upon the shore;
Fresh gales of joy blew landward, but in vain:
The Nation's heart was heavy with its pain.
II. AUGUST.
The little children skipping by the sea,Bare-limbed and merry, challenge its advance;
Holding the sunlight in their hair, they flee
The prone wave's tumult while they shout and dance:
But he who suffers far away grows faint
With longing for the seaside cheer and plaint;—
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While stately ships, intent, go sailing by!
III. SEPTEMBER.
What power was this? No tumult on the deep!The conscious waves crept whispering to the sand;
The very children, awed and eager, keep
The spell of silence holding sea and land.
White wings of healing filled the summer sky,
And prayerful thousands stood expectant by,
While, borne on bed of hope, content and wan,
The Nation's Man came into Elberon.
“'T is well!” the news sped gladly, day by day,—
“Old Ocean sends its strengthening breeze apace!”
Grandly, above the sparkling wavelets' play,
Our country's banner floated in its grace—
When, suddenly, grim shadows gathered near
To overwhelm us with a nameless fear;
Till all along Atlantic's sobbing sands—
Far as it rims our own and other lands,
Across the world, what spot the sun shines on—
Sounded the tidings dread:
The President is dead!
A Nation's grief broods over Elberon.
“Old Ocean sends its strengthening breeze apace!”
Grandly, above the sparkling wavelets' play,
Our country's banner floated in its grace—
When, suddenly, grim shadows gathered near
To overwhelm us with a nameless fear;
53
Far as it rims our own and other lands,
Across the world, what spot the sun shines on—
Sounded the tidings dread:
The President is dead!
A Nation's grief broods over Elberon.
| Poems and verses by Mary Mapes Dodge | |