Classic Poem

(Lowell)

Dead he lies at Elmwood,
Who sang of human fortitude;
Who voiced the higher, clearer way
By which all nobler spirits may
Rise to the rims of God's pure light
Over the edges of earth's night;
Who sang of manhood's highest best,
Like some sweet Arnold of the West,
With more of kinship in his blood
With the great struggling human brood.
With more of lyric in his note,
More of the clarion in his throat,
Tuned to the brawnier West,
He sang the songs our men love best.

He woke new longings in the heart
For that love-hungered, better part;
He stripped religion of her creeds,
And showed beneath the withered reeds
And dead old grass husks, bleached and sere,
The streams of God's love running clear.
In humor's ink he dipped his pen,
And mirth stirred in his fellowmen;
That larger, healthier, kindlier mirth,
That kindles in great souls of earth.
His was the mind of reverence,
Too great to give the soul offence.

This was the poet, simple, true,
Who all things glad for brothers knew;
With clear eyes knew the kings of earth
Beneath the husks of common worth;
Who never grew too learned to know
The hope of earth in heaven's bow;
Who never grew too old to feel
The sap of springtime upward steal;
Who never grew too worldly wise
To see with purer, childward eyes;
Too human to be merely good,
This great soul dead at Elmwood.
The song of life was on his lips,
True human to the finger tips,
With heart that pulsed and pulsed again,
A man, he loved his fellowmen,
This singer of all singers, who
To the young, strong republic true,
Voicing earth's people in the van,
Most manly, strong, American!

Yes, he is dead, as men know death,
Who count our living by the breath
That ebbs or flows. Yes, he is dead.
With morning's blush, or evening's red,
No more upon this earth will walk;
No more in human page, or talk,
Will he delight, or teach his kind,
Who love the glad lore of the mind.
But till the last despair is fled,
The last weird cell untenanted,
The last sweet hope athwart the dark
Vanishes in meteor spark;
While love of earth and man lives on,
And God and hope ahead are gone
To lead the way to loftier truth,
And earth rejuvenates her youth;
Till earth her latest blossom gives,
The heart of Lowell breathes and lives;
His Launfal learns the godlier way,
His dandelion casts its dusty ray,
His " Zekle " knows eternal youth;
As long as love, and hope, and truth,
As long as bloom, and pulse of blood,
He lives in earth's eternal good
Who now lies dead at Elmwood.