Hymn At The Funeral Services Of Charles Sumner, April 29, 1874

Once more, ye sacred towers,
Your solemn dirges sound;
Strew, loving hands, the April flowers,
Once more to deck his mound.
A nation mourns its dead,
Its sorrowing voices one,
As Israel's monarch bowed his head
And cried, "My son! My son!"

Why mourn for him? - For him
The welcome angel came
Ere yet his eye with age was dim
Or bent his stately frame;
His weapon still was bright,
His shield was lifted high
To slay the wrong, to save the right, -
What happier hour to die?

Thou orderest all things well;
Thy servant's work was done;
He lived to hear Oppression's knell,
The shouts for Freedom won.
Hark!! from the opening skies
The anthem's echoing swell, -
"O mourning Land, lift up thine eyes!
God reigneth. All is well!"

Oliver Wendell Holmes

A member of the Fireside Poets, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was an American physician, poet, and polymath known for his witty and conversational style. His medical writings and advocacy for public hygiene were influential, while his poetry often drew from his professional experiences and observations. Holmes was also a founding contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, where many of his essays and poems were published.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Charles Sumner

    Garlands upon his grave,
    And flowers upon his hearse,
And to the tender heart and brave
    The tribute of this verse.

    His was the troubled life,
    The conflict and the pain,
The grief, the bitterness of strife,
    The honor without stain.

    Like Winkelried, he took
    Into his manly breast
The sheaf of hostile spears, and broke
    A path for the oppressed.

    Then from the fatal field
    Upon a nation's heart
Borne like a warrior on his shield!--
    So should the brave depart.

    Death takes us by surprise,
    And stays our hurrying feet;
The great design unfinished lies,
    Our lives are incomplete.

    But in the dark unknown
    Perfect their circles seem,
Even as a bridge...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For The Services In Memory Of Abraham Lincoln

CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1865

CHORAL: "LUTHER'S JUDGMENT HYMN."

O thou of soul and sense and breath
The ever-present Giver,
Unto thy mighty Angel, Death,
All flesh thou dost deliver;
What most we cherish we resign,
For life and death alike are thine,
Who reignest Lord forever!

Our hearts lie buried in the dust
With him so true and tender,
The patriot's stay, the people's trust,
The shield of the offender;
Yet every murmuring voice is still,
As, bowing to thy sovereign will,
Our best-loved we surrender.

Dear Lord, with pitying eye behold
This martyr generation,
Which thou, through trials manifold,
Art showing thy salvation
Oh let the blood by murder spilt
Wash out thy stricken children's guilt
And sanctify ou...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Burial-Song For Sumner.

        Now the last wreath of snow
        That melts, in mist exhales
White aspiration, and our deep-voiced gales
In chorus chant the measured march of spring,
        Whom griefs of life and death
        Are burdening!
        Slow, slow -
        With half-held breath -
Tread slow, O mourners, that all men may know
        What hero here lies low!

        O music, sweep
        From some deep cave, and bear
To us that gasp in this so meagre air
        Sweet ministerings
And consolations of contorted sound,
        With agonies profound
Of nobly warring and enduring chords
        That lie, close-bound,
Unstirred as yet 'neath thy wide, wakening wings;
So that our hearts break not in broken words.
        O music, that hast power...

George Parsons Lathrop

Edward Everett - "Our First Citizen"

Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast;
For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold
What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed,
What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told.

Even as the bells, in one consenting chime,
Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air,
So joined all voices, in that mournful time,
His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare.

What place is left for words of measured praise,
Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen,
Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase
That shapes his image in the souls of men?

Yet while the echoes still repeat his name,
While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse,
Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim
The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse, -

Oliver Wendell Holmes

In Memory Of Charles Wentworth Upham, Jr.

He was all sunshine; in his face
The very soul of sweetness shone;
Fairest and gentlest of his race;
None like him we can call our own.

Something there was of one that died
In her fresh spring-time long ago,
Our first dear Mary, angel-eyed,
Whose smile it was a bliss to know.

Something of her whose love imparts
Such radiance to her day's decline,
We feel its twilight in our hearts
Bright as the earliest morning-shine.

Yet richer strains our eye could trace
That made our plainer mould more fair,
That curved the lip with happier grace,
That waved the soft and silken hair.

Dust unto dust! the lips are still
That only spoke to cheer and bless;
The folded hands lie white and chill
Unclasped from sorrow's last caress.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

On The Death Of President Garfield

I.

Fallen with autumn's falling leaf
Ere yet his summer's noon was past,
Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief, -
What words can match a woe so vast!

And whose the chartered claim to speak
The sacred grief where all have part,
Where sorrow saddens every cheek
And broods in every aching heart?

Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase
That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall,
The loud lament, the sorrowing praise,
The silent tear that love lets fall.

In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme,
Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir, - -
The singers of the new-born time,
And trembling age with outworn lyre.

No room for pride, no place for blame, -
We fling our blossoms on the grave,
Pale, - scentless, - faded, - all we cl...

Oliver Wendell Holmes