We parted in the streets of Ispahan. A moon has passed since that unhappy day; I send thee gifts by every caravan, I send thee flasks of attar, spices, pearls, I write thee loving songs on golden scrolls. I meet the caravans when they return. "What news?" I ask. The drivers shake their heads. We parted in the streets of Ispahan. Such thunderbolts, in other lands, No Cæsar he whom we lament, Sent, it would seem, to do Not by the weary cares of State, Must yet be done again: Not in the dark, wild tide of war, In awful anarchy: Four fateful years of mortal strife, Which slowly drained the nation's life, (Yet for each drop that ran There sprang an armèd man!) Not then; but when, by measures meet, By victory, and by defeat, By courage, patience, skill, The people's fixed "We will! " Had pierced, had crushed Rebellion dead, At last, when all was well, He fell, O how he fell! The time, the place, the stealing shape, A dream? What means this pageant, then? These multitudes of solemn men, Who speak not when they meet, But throng the silent street? The flags half-mast that late so high (The stars no brightness shed, The black festoons that stretch for miles, (No house too poor to show The cannon's sudden, sullen boom, The dreadful car that comes ? Cursed be the hand that fired the shot, By thee, thou worse than Cain! Tyrants have fallen by such as thou, But he, the man we mourn to-day, In one such weight who bore Cool should he be, of balanced powers, Impatient, headstrong, wild, And this he was, who most unfit With such a homely face, Such rustic manners, speech uncouth, The more than kingly care. Ah! And his genius put to scorn The People, of whom he was one. (Whose bones, methinks, make room, A laboring man, with horny hands, But did as poor men do. |