Lines (Sargent)

Ignoble hate, defeating its own ends!The act that meant dishonor, working glory!Could any mausoleum built by handsLift his sweet memory nearer to the heavens,Or give it such a precious consecrationIn every heart which love has purified?

O young and sainted martyr! let them pileWhole hecatombs of dead upon thy ashes;They can not bar God's angels from receivingThy radiant spirit with divinest welcomes;They can not cover from celestial eyesThe sacrifice that bears thee close to Christ!

Did I not see thee, on that day in spring,Leading one sable thousand through our streets;Braving the scorn and (what was worse) the pityOf many backward hearts, yet cheered with bravosFrom those who scanned the great significanceOf thy devoted daring---saw the crownBehind the cross, behind the shame the glory;Behind the imminent death the life immortal?Weep not, heroic parents! be consoled!Think of thy loved one's gain, lamenting wife!And let a holy pride o'ermaster grief!All that could perish of him, let it lieThere, where the smoke from Sumter's bellowing gunsCurls o'er the grave, which no commingled dust

Can make less sacred! Soon his monumentShall be the old flag waving, and proclaimingTo the whole world that the great cause he died forHas nobly triumphed; that the hideous power,Hell-born, that would disgrace him, has been hurledInto the pit it hollowed for the nation;That the Republic stands redeemed and pure,Justice enthroned, and not one child of GodRobbed of his birthright---Freedom!