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Crimson stained; and, as to and fro
Her sandals flash, we see on them,
And on her instep veined with blue,
Flecks of crimson, on those fair feet,
High-arched, Diana-like, and fleet,
Fit for no grosser stain than dew:
Oh, call them rather chrisms than stains,
Sacred and from heroic veins !
For, in the glory-guarded pass,
Her haughty and far-shining head
She bowed to shrive Leonidas
With his imperishable dead;
Her, too, Morgarten saw,

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Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw;
She followed Cromwell's quenchless star
Where the grim Puritan tread
Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar:
Yea, on her feet are dearer dyes
Yet fresh, not looked on with untearful
eyes.

Where now our broad-browed poet sleeps,
Dear to both Englands; near him he
Who wore the ring of Canace;
But most her heart to rapture leaps
Where stood that era-parting bridge,
O'er which, with footfall still as dew,
The Old Time passed into the New;
Where, as your stealthy river creeps,
He whispers to his listening weeds
Tales of sublimest homespun deeds.
Here English law and English thought
'Gainst the self-will of England fought;
And here were men (coequal with their
fate),

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From all heaven's caverns rushing uncon

fined,

I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge: I abide

With men whom dust of faction cannot blind

To the slow tracings of the Eternal Mind; With men by culture trained and fortified, Who bitter duty to sweet lusts prefer, Fearless to counsel and obey.

Conscience my sceptre is, and law my sword,

Not to be drawn in passion or in play, 190 But terrible to punish and deter; Implacable as God's word,

Like it, a shepherd's crook to them that blindly err.

Your firm-pulsed sires, my martyrs and my saints,

Offshoots of that one stock whose patient

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230

Verses, leap forth in the sun, Bearing the joyance along Like a train of fire as ye run! Pause not for choosing of words, Let them but blossom and sing Blithe as the orchards and birds With the new coming of spring! Dance in your jollity, bells; Shout, cannon; cease not, ye drums; Answer, ye hillside and dells; Bow, all ye people! She comes, Radiant, calm-fronted, as when She hallowed that April day. Stay with us! Yes, thou shalt stay, Softener and strengthener of men, Freedom, not won by the vain, Not to be courted in play, Not to be kept without pain. Stay with us! Yes, thou wilt stay, Handmaid and mistress of all, Kindler of deed and of thought, Thou that to hut and to hall Equal deliverance brought! Souls of her martyrs, draw near, Touch our dull lips with your fire, That we may praise without fear Her our delight, our desire, Our faith's inextinguishable star, Our hope, our remembrance, our trust, Our present, our past, our to be, Who will mingle her life with our dust And makes us deserve to be free! 1875.

POEM

UNDER THE OLD ELM1

240

250

1875.

READ AT CAMBRIDGE ON THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF WASHINGTON'S TAKING COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, 3D JULY, 1775

I

I

WORDS pass as wind, but where great deeds were done

A power abides transfused from sire to

son:

1 I think the Old Elm' the best of the three [memorial poems], mainly because it was composed after my college duties were over, though even in that I was distracted by the intervention of the Commencement dinner. (LOWELL, letter of January 14, 1877.) We, too, here in my birthplace, having found out

that something happened here a hundred years ago, must have our centennial; and, since my friend and townsman Dr. Holmes could n't be had, I felt bound to do the poetry for the day. We have still standing the elm under which Washington took command of the American (till then provincial) army, and under which also Whitefield had preached some thirty years before. I took advantage of the occasion to hold out a hand of kindly reconciliation to Virginia. I could do it with the profounder feeling, that no family lost more than mine by the Civil War. Three nephews (the hope of our race) were killed in one or other of the Virginia battles, and three cousins on other of those bloody fields. (LOWELL, letter of July 6, 1875. Quoted by permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers.)

See also the letters of October 16, 1875, and February 22, 1877.

1 After the defeat of Braddock, Washington wrote to his brother: By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet I escaped unhurt, although death was levelling my companions on every side of me.' (Quoted in the Riverside Literature Series.)

2 Harvard, Hollis, and Massachusetts Halls were used as barracks, and the President's house was for a time Washington's headquarters.