Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By John GreenleafWhittier228 An Autograph
I
On sands by waves o’errun
Or winter’s frosted pane,
Traces a record vain.
Wiser and better names,
And well my own may pass
As from the strand or glass.
Melt, noons, the frosty rime!
Welcome the shadow vast,
The silence that shall last!
And love me vanish so,
What harm to them or me
Will the lost memory be?
Through right of life divine,
Remain, what matters it
Whose hand the message writ?
Sit on my worst or best?
Why should the showman claim
The poor ghost of my name?
Its spectre lingers round,
Haply my spent life will
Leave some faint echo still.
Of praise or blame to death,
Soothing or saddening such
As loved the living much.
And fond I still would fain
A kindly judgment seek,
A tender thought bespeak.
Let this at least be said:
“Whate’er his life’s defeatures,
He loved his fellow-creatures.
To hold he scarce was able
The first great precept fast,
He kept for man the last.
What lacks the Eternal Fulness,
If still our weakness can
Love Him in loving man?
Of the world’s future faring;
In human nature still
He found more good than ill.
His tongue and pen he offered;
His life was not his own,
Nor lived for self alone.
He lived in days unquiet;
And, lover of all beauty,
Trod the hard ways of duty.
He sought the good of many,
Yet knew both sin and folly,—
May God forgive him wholly!”