Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part IV, Appendix to diplomatic correspondence of 1865; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, late president of the United States of America, and the attempted assassination of William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and Frederick W. Seward, Assistant Secretary, on the evening of the 14th of April, 1865; expressions of condolence and sympathy inspired by these events

Ode, by Henry T. Tuckerman, delivered before the Athenaeum Club

New York, April 25, 1865

ODE,

written by Henry t. tuckerman, of the committee on resolutions, for the funeral obsequies, april 25, 1865.

I.

Shroud the banner! rear the Cross!

Consecrate a nation’s less;

Gaze on that majestic sleep;

Stand beside the bier to weep;

Lay the gentle son of toil

Proudly in his native soil:

Crowned with honor, to his rest

Bear the prophet of the west.

II.

How cold the brow that yet doth wear

The impress of a nation’s care;

How still the heart, whose every beat

Glowed with compassion’s sacred heat;

Rigid the lips, whose patient smile

Duty’s stern task would oft beguile;

Blood-quenched the pensive eye’s soft light;

Nerveless the hand so loth to smite;

So meek in rule, it leads, though dead,

The people as in life it led.

III.

O let his wise and guileless sway

Win every recreant to-day,

And sorrow’s vast and holy wave

Blend all our hearts around his grave!

Let the faithful bondsmen’s tears,

Let the traitors’ craven fears,

And the people’s grief and pride,

Plead against the parricide!

Let us throng to pledge and pray

O’er the patriot martyr’s clay;

Then, with solemn faith in right,

That made him victor in the fights,

Cling to the path he fearless trod,

Still radiant with the smile of God.

IV.

Shroud the banner! rear the Cross

Consecrate a nation’s loss;

Gaze on that majestic sleep;

Stand beside the bier to weep;

Lay the gentle son of toil

Proudly in his native soil;

Crowned with honor, to his rest

Bear the prophet of the west.

In the funeral obsequies on the 25th of April, the Athenæum Club participated, bearing an appropriate banner, the members wearing distinctive badges of mourning, and headed by their vice-president, Mr. Henry E. Pierrepont; the president, Mr. William T. Blodgett, being then absent as chairman of the citizens committee.