And there's no poor man in the North Countree
But is lord of the earldom as much as he.




ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION.

[On the 21st of July, 1865, Harvard University welcomed back those of
its students and graduates who had fought in the war for the Union. By
exercises in the church and at the festival which followed, the
services of the dead and the living were commemorated. It was on this
occasion that Mr. Lowell recited the following ode.]

I.


Weak-winged is song,
Nor aims at that clear-ethered height
Whither the brave deed climbs for light:
We seem to do them wrong,
Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse 5
Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse,
Our trivial song to honor those who come
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum,
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire,
Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: 10
Yet sometimes feathered words are strong,
A gracious memory to buoy up and save
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave