Classic Poem

Finite is human help—many words are a hindrance.
Words for the muses should bear the slow pressure of patience;
Scarcely one leaves them content, after utmost endeavor.
Visit me not with your anger, ye powers poetic,
If, in my hotness and haste, I have jarred your sweet fetters.
But, while your presence I feel, thrilling through and above me,
Listen a moment longer; suspend your high sentence,
(Towards which I leap, when the daring is more than the danger,)
While with the name that has grown to a presence ideal,
As with a sound of sweet music, I pass from your hearing.
Washington! thou art set as a symbol of greatness,
Of courage that boasts not, of honor that knows not temptation.
Thee all men praise—not a town in thy multiplied country
That hath not thy name and thy bust for its empty Valhalla.
How is it with thee, calm looking down from the death-cloud?
Is not thy soul astound with the praise and the practice?
Dost thou not point to the niches, the wreaths, and the statues,
Asking: “What is it ye honor, who know not my maxims?
Mocking my spirit, when patriots catch its far echoes.
Wherefore these splendors?—the skill of the draftsman and sculptor—
Marbles, whose whiteness stands not for your whiteness of virtue,
Filth of the market defiling the innermost temple—
Wherefore these columns?—this dome that shall pierce the high heaven?
Were not the narrow walls wide enough for your mercies?
Was not the low roof too high for your poor aspirations?
Can you not see that the heart of your city is meanness?
Give it another name, lest it stand to defame me.”