This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and forecast of evil
consequences which I felt on reading the seventh of March speech of
Daniel Webster in support of the "compromise," and the Fugitive Slave
Law. No partisan or personal enmity dictated it. On the contrary my
admiration of the splendid personality and intellectual power of the
great Senator was never stronger than when I laid down his speech, and,
in one of the saddest moments of my life, penned my protest. I saw, as I
wrote, with painful clearness its sure results,--the Slave Power
arrogant and defiant, strengthened and encouraged to carry out its
scheme for the extension of its baleful system, or the dissolution of
the Union, the guaranties of personal liberty in the free States broken
down, and the whole country made the hunting-ground of slave-catchers.
In the horror of such a vision, so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one
spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of stern and sorrowful
rebuke. But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a
common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity of
judgment. Years after, in _The Lost Occasion_ I gave utterance to an
almost universal regret that the great statesman did not live to see the
flag which he loved trampled under the feet of Slavery, and, in view of
this desecration, make his last days glorious in defence of "Liberty and
Union, one and inseparable."
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!
Revile him not, the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!
Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.
Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven!
Let not the land once proud of him
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.
But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.
Of all we loved and honored, naught
Save power remains;
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!
Then, pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!
1850