ght as any here!
I strive to mix some gladness with my strain,
But the sad strings complain, 230
And will not please the ear:
I sweep them for a paean, but they wane
Again and yet again
Into a dirge, and die away in pain.
In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 235
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps,
Dark to the triumph which they died to gain:
Fitlier may others greet the living,
For me the past is unforgiving;
I with uncovered head 240
Salute the sacred dead,
Who went, and who return not,--Say not so!
'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,
But the high faith that failed not by the way;
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; 245
No ban of endless night exiles the brave:
And to the saner mind
We rather seem the dead that stayed behind.
Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow!
For never shall their aureoled presence lack: 250
I see them muster in a gleaming row,
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show;
We find in our dull road their shining track;
In every nobler mood
We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 255
Part of our life's unalterable good,
Of all our saintlier aspiration;
They come transfigured back,
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 260
Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!

IX

Who now shall sneer?
Who dare again to say we trace
Our lines to a plebeian race?
Roundhead and Cavalier! 265
Dreams are those names erewhile in battle loud;
Forceless as is the shadow of a cloud,
They live but in the ear:
That is best blood that hath most iron, in 't,
To edge resolve with, pouring without stint 270
For what makes manhood dear.
Tell us not of Plantagenets,
Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl
Down from some victor in a border-brawl!
How poor their outworn coronets, 275
Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath
Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath,
Throu