2.

Our grosser minds need this terrestrial hint
To raise long-buried days from tombs of print; 50
‘Here stood he,’ softly we repeat,
And lo, the statue shrined and still
In that gray minster-front we call the Past,
Feels in its frozen veins our pulses thrill,
Breathes living air and mocks at Death’s deceit. 
It warms, it stirs, comes down to us at last,
Its features human with familiar light,
A man, beyond the historian’s art to kill,
Or sculptor’s to efface with patient chisel-blight.

3.

Sure the dumb earth hath memory, nor for naught 60
Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted loom
Present and Past commingle, fruit and bloom
Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought
Into the seamless tapestry of thought. 
So charmed, with undeluded eye we see
In history’s fragmentary tale
Bright clues of continuity,
Learn that high natures over Time prevail,
And feel ourselves a link in that entail
That binds all ages past with all that are to be. 70

III

1.

Beneath our consecrated elm
A century ago he stood,
Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood
Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm
The life foredoomed to wield our rough-hewn helm:—­
From colleges, where now the gown
To arms had yielded, from the town,
Our rude self-summoned levies flocked to see
The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he. 
No need to question long; close-lipped and tall, 80
Long trained in murder-brooding forests lone
To bridle others’ clamors and his own,
Firmly erect, he towered above them all,
The incarnate discipline that was to free
With iron curb that armed democracy.

2.

A motley rout was that which came to stare,
In raiment tanned by years of sun and storm,
Of every shape that was not uniform,
Dotted with regimentals here and there;
An array all of captains, used to pray 90
And stiff in fight, but serious drill’s despair,
Skilled to debate their orders, not obey;
Deacons were there, selectmen, men of note
In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round with woods,
Ready to settle Freewill by a vote,
But largely liberal to its private moods;
Prompt to assert by manners, voice, or pen,
Or ruder arms, their rights as Englishmen,
Nor much fastidious as to how and when: 
Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create 100
A thought-staid army or a lasting state: 
Haughty they said he was, at first; severe;
But owned, as all men own, the steady hand
Upon the bridle, patient to command,
Prized, as all prize, the justice pure from fear,
And learned to honor first, then love him, then revere. 
Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint
And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint.