The poor are crushed:  the tyrants link their chain;
  The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates;
Man’s hope lies quenched; and, lo! with steadfast gain
  Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates.

Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross
  Make up the groaning record of the past;
But Evil’s triumphs are her endless loss,
  And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last.

No power can die that ever wrought for Truth;
  Thereby a law of Nature it became, 30
And lives unwithered in its blithesome youth,
  When he who called it forth is but a name.

Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone;
  The better part of thee is with us still;
Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown,
  And only freer wrestles with the ill.

Thou livest in the life of all good things;
  What words thou spak’st for Freedom shall not die;
Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings
  To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly. 40

And often, from that other world, on this
  Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine,
To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss,
  And clothe the Right with lustre more divine.

Thou art not idle:  in thy higher sphere
  Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks,
And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here
  Is all the crown and glory that it asks.

For sure, in Heaven’s wide chambers, there is room
  For love and pity, and for helpful deeds; 50
Else were our summons thither but a doom
  To life more vain than this in clayey weeds.

From off the starry mountain-peak of song,
  Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time,
An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong,
  A race revering its own soul sublime.

What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may come,
  Thou knowest not, nor I; but God will lead
The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home,
  And Eden ope her gates to Adam’s seed. 60

Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand
  Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning too;
Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand,
  Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue: 

When that day comes, oh, may this hand grow cold,
  Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right;
Oh, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold
  To face dark Slavery’s encroaching blight!

This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier;
  Let worthier hands than these thy wreath intwine; 70
Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,—­
  For us weep rather thou in calm divine!

TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD

Another star ’neath Time’s horizon dropped,
  To gleam o’er unknown lands and seas;
Another heart that beat for freedom stopped,—­
  What mournful words are these!