Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, by ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He rests with the immortals; his journey has been long
Last Line: Shall his voice be heard to cheer us, shall his finger point the way.
Subject(s): Adams, John Quincy (1767-1848); Presidents, United States


HE rests with the immortals; his journey has been long:
For him no wail of sorrow, but a paean full and strong!
So well and bravely has he done the work he found to do,
To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever true.

Strong to the end, a man of men, from out the strife he passed;
The grandest hour of all his life was that of earth the last.
Now midst his snowy hills of home to the grave they bear him down,
The glory of his fourscore years resting on him like a crown.

The mourning of the many bells, the drooping flags, all seem
Like some dim, unreal pageant passing onward in a dream;
And following with the living to his last and narrow bed,
Methinks I see a shadowy band, a train of noble dead.

'T is a strange and weird procession that is slowly moving on,
The phantom patriots gathered to the funeral of their son!
In shadowy guise they move along, brave Otis with hushed tread,
And Warren walking reverently by the father of the dead.

Gliding foremost in the misty band a gentle form is there,
In the white robes of the angels and their glory round her hair.
She hovers near and bends above her world-wide honored child,
And the joy that heaven alone can know beams on her features mild.

And so they bear him to his grave in the fulness of his years,
True sage and prophet, leaving us in a time of many fears.
Nevermore amid the darkness of our wild and evil day
Shall his voice be heard to cheer us, shall his finger point the way.





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