More solemn and intense
Than that wherewith he shook
The Senate, while his look
Of sober lightning cleft the knotty growth
Of error, that within the riven root
Uplifted, lit with peace, truth's buds might shoot,
And blow sweet breath o'er all, however loth!

Unspeaking, though his eyes forget
The light that late forsook
Their chambers, there doth rise
Mysteriously yet
A radiance thence that glows
On brows of them, the great and wise,
Poets and men of prophecies,
Who, with looks of strange repose,
Calm, exalted, here have met
Him to follow to his grave.
Well they know he's crossed their bound,
Yet, with baffled longing brave,
Seek with him the depths to sound
That gulf our lonely life around.
Oh, on these mortal faces frail
What immortality
Falls from the death-light pale!

Ev'n thus the path unto thy tomb,
Sumner, all our brave and good
Still shall pace through time to come,
For in distant Auburn wood