Hymn For The Inauguration Of The Statue Of Governor Andrew

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Title:     Hymn For The Inauguration Of The Statue Of Governor Andrew
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes [More Titles by Holmes]

HINGHAM, OCTOBER 7, 1875

BEHOLD the shape our eyes have known!
It lives once more in changeless stone;
So looked in mortal face and form
Our guide through peril's deadly storm.

But hushed the beating heart we knew,
That heart so tender, brave, and true,
Firm as the rooted mountain rock,
Pure as the quarry's whitest block!

Not his beneath the blood-red star
To win the soldier's envied sear;
Unarmed he battled for the right,
In Duty's never-ending fight.

Unconquered will, unslumbering eye,
Faith such as bids the martyr die,
The prophet's glance, the master's hand
To mould the work his foresight planned,

These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent
For justice, mercy, truth, he spent,
First to avenge the traitorous blow,
And first to lift the vanquished foe.

Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait
The pilot of the Pilgrim State!
Too large his fame for her alone,--
A nation claims him as her own!

[The end]
Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem: Hymn For The Inauguration Of The Statue Of Governor Andrew

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