John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Poems by Elizabeth H. WhittierJohn Quincy Adams
H
For him no wail of sorrow, but a pæan full and strong!
So well and bravely has he done the work he found to do,
To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever true.
The grandest hour of all his life was that of earth the last.
Now midst his snowy hills of home to the grave they bear him down,
The glory of his fourscore years resting on him like a crown.
Like some dim, unreal pageant passing onward in a dream;
And following with the living to his last and narrow bed,
Methinks I see a shadowy band, a train of noble dead.
The phantom patriots gathered to the funeral of their son!
In shadowy guise they move along, brave Otis with hushed tread,
And Warren walking reverently by the father of the dead.
In the white robes of the angels and their glory round her hair.
She hovers near and bends above her world-wide honored child,
And the joy that heaven alone can know beams on her features mild.
True sage and prophet, leaving us in a time of many fears.
Nevermore amid the darkness of our wild and evil day
Shall his voice be heard to cheer us, shall his finger point the way.