Randolph Of Roanoke

"O Mother Earth! upon thy lap     Thy weary ones receiving,     And o'er them, silent as a dream,     Thy grassy mantle weaving,     Fold softly in thy long embrace     That heart so worn and broken,     And cool its pulse of fire beneath     Thy shadows old and oaken.     Shut out from him the bitter word     And serpent hiss of scorning;     Nor let the storms of yesterday     Disturb his quiet morning.     Breathe over him forgetfulness     Of all save deeds of kindness,     And, save to smiles of grateful eyes,     Press down his lids in blindness.     There, where with living ear and eye     He heard Potomac's flowing,     And, through his tall ancestral trees,     Saw autumn's sunset glowing,     He sleeps, still looking to the west,     Beneath the dark wood shadow,     As if he still would see the sun     Sink down on wave and meadow.     Bard, Sage, and Tribune! in himself     All moods of mind contrasting,     The tenderest wail of human woe,     The scorn like lightning blasting;     The pathos which from rival eyes     Unwilling tears could summon,     The stinging taunt, the fiery burst     Of hatred scarcely human!     Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower,     From lips of life long sadness;     Clear picturings of majestic thought     Upon a ground of madness;     And over all Romance and Song     A classic beauty throwing,     And laurelled Clio at his side     Her storied pages showing.     All parties feared him: each in turn     Beheld its schemes disjointed,     As right or left his fatal glance     And spectral finger pointed.     Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down     With trenchant wit unsparing,     And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand     The robe Pretence was wearing.     Too honest or too proud to feign     A love he never cherished,     Beyond Virginia's border line     His patriotism perished.     While others hailed in distant skies     Our eagle's dusky pinion,     He only saw the mountain bird     Stoop o'er his Old Dominion!     Still through each change of fortune strange     Racked nerve, and brain all burning,     His loving faith in Mother-land     Knew never shade of turning;     By Britain's lakes, by Neva's tide,     Whatever sky was o'er him,     He heard her rivers' rushing sound,     Her blue peaks rose before him.     He held his slaves, yet made withal     No false and vain pretences,     Nor paid a lying priest to seek     For Scriptural defences.     His harshest words of proud rebuke,     His bitterest taunt and scorning,     Fell fire-like on the Northern brow     That bent to him in fawning.     He held his slaves; yet kept the while     His reverence for the Human;     In the dark vassals of his will     He saw but Man and Woman!     No hunter of God's outraged poor     His Roanoke valley entered;     No trader in the souls of men     Across his threshold ventured.     And when the old and wearied man     Lay down for his last sleeping,     And at his side, a slave no more,     His brother-man stood weeping,     His latest thought, his latest breath,     To Freedom's duty giving,     With failing tongue and trembling hand     The dying blest the living.     Oh, never bore his ancient State     A truer son or braver!     None trampling with a calmer scorn     On foreign hate or favor.     He knew her faults, yet never stooped     His proud and manly feeling     To poor excuses of the wrong     Or meanness of concealing.     But none beheld with clearer eye     The plague-spot o'er her spreading     None heard more sure the steps of Doom     Along her future treading.     For her as for himself he spake,     When, his gaunt frame upbracing,     He traced with dying hand 'Remorse!'     And perished in the tracing.     As from the grave where Henry sleeps,     From Vernon's weeping willow,     And from the grassy pall which hides     The Sage of Monticello,     So from the leaf-strewn burial-stone     Of Randolph's lowly dwelling,     Virginia! o'er thy land of slaves     A warning voice is swelling!     And hark! from thy deserted fields     Are sadder warnings spoken,     From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons     Their household gods have broken.     The curse is on thee, wolves for men,     And briers for corn-sheaves giving!     Oh, more than all thy dead renown     Were now one hero living