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 GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. 
 Born April 27, 1822. Died July 23, 1885. 
 
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 COPYRIGHTED 1897. 
 The Uptown Visitor Publishing Co., 247 W. 125th St.,|VewS>rk City. 
 
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 The Officers and Men 
 
 of the 
 
 Grand Ar'rrty of the Republic 
 
 This Tribute to their Chieftain 
 
 Is respectfully dedicated. 
 
 New York, April 15, 1897. 
 
 EDWARD DOYLE 
 
LAYING THE HEKO TO KEST. 
 
 T 
 
 o 
 
 From out our land the light of joy has gone, 
 
 AncJ dark is every dwelling as a grave. 
 
 No more shall we see him whom Freedom placed 
 
 A fondest mother's trust in, in the strength 
 
 Of whose integrity she felt the earth 
 
 Grow firm and firmer to her heavenly feet, 
 
 As to the feet of Spring. Upon the height, 
 
 The Mausoleum looms to hold his form 
 
 Within its midnight hush forevermore 
 
 Yet, ah ! do we not hear the clear, full voice 
 
 Of his career of duty to his God 
 
 And country, and, in his achievements, see 
 
 His spirit's most sublime embodiment? 
 
 Do we not know the Hero is the soul 
 
 Angelic in maintaining right supreme; 
 
 That, hence no tomb nor all the flowering earth 
 
 Can shut him from our view; that only Heaven 
 
8 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 With broadening azure can pavilion him? 
 With these reflections let our souls grow calm 
 As the Pacific, that from eve accepts 
 The mantle of her peace, when she ascends 
 To Heaven with all the good which men achiev 
 
 II 
 
 Above the city's blackness pierced by spires, 
 In fancy rise; and glancing toward the bay 
 Behold the fleet collecting like wild birds 
 That spread their wings for migratory flight. 
 Then watch the tangled chain of soldiery, 
 Thrown in huge heaps on every street and square 
 Uncoil beneath the Marshal's master hand, 
 And lengthen out without a broken link. 
 There, where the throng is thickest and most stilt 
 Departs the Hero in a winding sheet 
 Of mournful melody toward Claremont, where 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 Old Hudson makes the grandest of its sweeps 
 
 And most sublime expansion, passing there 
 
 Into a realm heroic, where it spreads 
 
 Broad as a lake, and mirrors in its depths 
 
 The heights where Freedom dashed Oppression down, 
 
 III. 
 
 Up from the broad, bright bay the warships sail, 
 
 Upon the blue midstream toward Riverside, 
 
 Where thousands watch for them with wearying eyes. 
 
 Slowly they move; the shadow of the earth 
 
 Upon the moon eclipsing her, creeps not 
 
 More slowly than the mournful armament, 
 
 Nor casts a deeper darkness over men. 
 
 Larger the vessels grow, and restlessness 
 
 Stirs breeze-like thro' the throng along the slope, 
 
 And on the hillocks. From the sunny bay, 
 
 To the long shadows of the Palisarlpe, 
 
10 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 Extend the monitors and sloops of war. 
 
 Arrayed in battle line, they flash and boom. • 
 
 How the earth quakes ! how from the coldest depths 
 
 The tidal surge of terror splashes white 
 
 Across the faces of the multitude, 
 
 As tho' they saw the millions slain arise 
 
 And fall back ghastly into swallowing earth ! 
 
 While from the air and from the river rolls 
 
 A double dolorous moan among the hills 
 
 And valleys of the peopled Palisades, 
 
 And down along the black metropolis 
 
 Where the battalions, looking up, catch glimpses 
 
 Of their old camp in the hundred tents of smoke, 
 
 Pitched thick about the ships and over them 
 
 With every boom; the camp wherein of old 
 
 They flew to arms at midnigh£ or at dawn, 
 
 Upon the sudden call, or on the eve 
 
 Of battle which rose crimson with the sun, 
 
 They flashed incessantly without a sound, 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 11 
 
 And with dull glare; as lightning's flash at noon, 
 On summer days before the storm lets fall 
 Its avalanches, thunderbolts and hail. 
 
 IV 
 
 Fearful of prancing steed or backing wheel, 
 
 The father holds his wild boy by the hand; 
 
 Or, lest the crowd may crush him in its swerve 
 
 As on a pivot toward the booming ships, 
 
 Or toward the wave-like rolling of the drums 
 
 Along old Broadway. How the concourse grows! 
 
 It does not thunder now with wild acclaim 
 
 As when the Hero having rescued Peace 
 
 From war's red clutch, marched homeward with his men, 
 
 And with enkindled eyes saw everywhere. 
 
 Our armies breaking into citizens, . 
 
 Like rugged, roaring Winter into Spring; 
 
 Or saw his Arabs let their horses graze 
 
12 m LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 Among the musket sheaves in field and grove. 
 
 To clasp their wives and children lily-white, 
 Beneath the trees or by the broken gate ; 
 
 And in the ricy swamp or cotton field 
 
 Beheld the freedman, too, with eyes astream, 
 
 Yet, bright with the sun-dance of an Easter morn, 
 
 Embrace his wife and kin, without the dread 
 
 Of ever being dragged from out his hut, — 
 
 Out from their sobs and moans and broken hearts, 
 
 By a slave-dealer with a whip and hound. 
 
 V. 
 
 Upon the throng at windows, on the roofs, 
 The tiers of seats, and on the rocks and trees — 
 There falls a sudden hush, and long the lull, 
 As should a lightning linger like the snow; 
 For now, low as the rumble of the earth, 
 The drum rolls near and nearer, while the strains 
 
LAYING THE HEEO TO REST. 13 
 
 Of martial anguish eddy in the air 
 
 Like swallows in the shadow of tihe storm. 
 
 Lo! as the evening star before night's host. 
 
 So comes brave Hancock singly in advance 
 
 Of the Old Guard, with their arms reversed, and step 
 
 Not so responsive to the beat of woe, 
 
 As to the quick and thrilling bugle call 
 
 Of duty, to fill up the gap in front, 
 
 Or lift the fallen standard, not allow . 
 
 The foe to snatch and twirl in overhead 
 
 Across the field and raise a thunder shout 
 
 More deadly than the bursting of a bomb 
 
 In scarlet torrents on the sleeping camp, 
 
 Or thro' the crashing forest where Zouaves 
 
 Sit by the camp-fire, telling comrades' deeds, 
 
 Or tales of home — the standard, that, raised, torn 
 
 With shot and shell was all the broader sail 
 
 To catch the breeze of valor from true hearts, 
 
 And, by it, be swept up the steepest wave. 
 
14 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Ye youth who seek out peril for your perch 
 Or push thro' densest crowds as morning rays 
 Pervade the branches and wet leaves, and form 
 Cathedral glory in the darkest woods! 
 O, all ye youth who now are held alof* 
 Upon the shoulders of all future years, 
 The giants with the mist upon their eyes, 
 That ye may let them know what ye behold, 
 What see ye here to-day? a long sun-shaft 
 Of glittering arms, and then a dark nightfall 
 Of civic sorrow, clouds surcharged with rain, 
 From California's coast, Sierra's peaks, 
 The Rocky Mountains, prairies, Northern Lakes, 
 The woods of Maine and from the Southern Gulf, 
 Passing across our city without break. 
 Good, but see ye no more than pageantry, 
 A thing to marvel at, such as the stone, 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 15 
 
 That cast ablaze from Heaven, lights up the plains 
 And features of the pointing savages, 
 Upon the hills and rocks for miles about 
 Night after night for months? The spectacle 
 Ye witness is no blaze to be rain-quenched, 
 Or covered by a storm of sand, ere long; 
 But bud of Heaven let fall on earth to bloom. 
 'Tis brotherhood, such as they know above, 
 Beyond earth's mists, for look ye down the line! 
 The Blue and Gray commingle. How they maroh 
 Shoulder to shoulder, carrying aloft 
 The sacred burden of their country's grief; 
 
 VII. 
 
 How think these are the Blue and Gray who met 
 Upon the bridge which only one could pass, 
 And rushed upon each other with the yell, 
 And glaring eyes of demons? They, who clinched 
 
16 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 With sword and shot, and 'mid the dust and smoke 
 
 Jumped on each other's breasts with scowl and curse? 
 
 The Bine and Gray, whose clash upon the bridge 
 
 Swung it beneath them like an ocean wave, 
 
 So that it seemed at times about to break 
 
 Its fastenings, and crash down with both of them 
 
 Upon the rocks and roll from crag to crag 
 
 Like thunder deep and deeper, till, at length, 
 
 The gloating vultures from the ancient world 
 
 That hovered near might swoop and gorge their fill? 
 
 The same old Blue and Gray; and tho' the one 
 
 May drag the ordnance, huge and ponderous 
 
 With painful memories, it does not lag 
 
 In honor to the victor of the bridge, 
 
 Who made a way for Freedom thro' his ranks, 
 
 To reach the vanquished, and, weep with a voice 
 
 That stilled the very heart-beat of the stars: 
 
 "0 Absalom! O Absalom! my son! 
 
 Tears, only tears, Lave I tor thee. With them 
 
LAYING THE HEEO TO KBST. 17 
 
 I wash thy features of the battle smoke 
 
 That never should have stained them, and, beholding 
 
 The beauty of thy youth, forget all else." 4 £v 
 
 srm. 
 
 All murmur ceases — nay, have we not here, C 
 
 The silence of the azure nearest God- 
 
 The azure where sublime and reverent thought 
 
 Alone can enter? Gleamful with the wings 
 
 Of angels, is the silence most profound, 
 
 Of the vast throng at Kiverside, as, now, 
 
 The purple chariot drawn by milk-white steeds 
 
 Approaches. At the head of every horse 
 
 A freedman walks, with heaviness of heart. 
 
 Now, cease the rumbling drum and martial air, 
 
 Except afar where they grow echo-like, 
 
 Till audible alone in memory; 
 
 For the battalion halts, to let the car 
 
18 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 Pass thro' the ranks drawn up in bowed array, 
 
 And mount the holiest of Freedom's hills; 
 
 For there it was that Washington once stood 
 
 In anguish, noticing how few, how few 
 
 His routed men were, and how great, how great 
 
 His undertaking, and where he took heart, 
 
 Feeling God's inspiration like a breeze. 
 
 Oh! could the Father of our land have flown 
 
 Upon prophetic wings to this great hour, 
 
 And seen the sword, once his, rise high in Heaven 
 
 And glow a comet — viewed with awe and dread, 
 
 By every tyrant in the world, and watched 
 
 With hope and joy, by every writhing slave ! 
 
 Could he have seen and heard, Balboa-like, 
 
 The millions of the Old World hither sweep 
 
 Billow on billow — aye, the dark Atlantic 
 
 Where tempests, when they dash not wild at Heaven, 
 
 Swim near the surface like a diving bird 
 
 And swell the wa/ters with their rising wing, — 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 19 
 
 Flash from the East to West, and in our land 
 Extend a bright Pacific, mirroring 
 The moon without a storm-ring, all the stars, 
 White, green and crimson, and, sublimer still, 
 The planets' Freedom and the Azure's Peace ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 The ancient bugler with the youthful face, 
 
 Climbs reverently on the purple car, 
 
 And lifts his bugle, not with grasp as firm 
 
 However, as at Appomatox, when 
 
 He seized it from fierce war and sounded Peace 
 
 Across the hills and valleys of our land. 
 
 He falters, and a tear rests on his cheek. 
 
 At length he sounds the taps, the last, long call 
 
 Unto the wanderer from the camp, and ah ! 
 
 Not only do the tents rise into view 
 
 Stillv and white, as drift on drift of snow . 
 
20 LAYING THE HEKO TO EEST. 
 
 But they emit a chill, that, thro' the throng 
 Send many a tremor. Buckner, Fitz Hugh Lee, 
 And Johnson draw deep sighs and bow their heads; 
 Impulsive Sherman sinks his heel in the ground 
 And forward bends, as though upon his steed, 
 Resolved to seek his comrade wheresoe'er, 
 And not return without him ! Sheridan, 
 Ashy of feature, trembles, as he never 
 Trembled in battle, tho' the earth might quake, 
 And open black and red with smoke and flame 
 Beneath his rearing charger; while old soldiers, 
 Who, to catch breath, would speak, or utter a cry, 
 But move their livid lips; else, gasp with throats, 
 As husky as a distant battle's roar. 
 
 X. 
 
 Boom, ye warships! boom, each minute boom! 
 Ye voice the gratitude we fain would shout 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 21 
 
 Boom ! for ye rouse not from the distant deep, 
 
 Tlie monster fratricidal war, to rear 
 
 Its hideous head amid the Heavens, and make 
 
 The rising, roving and insatiate sun, 
 
 Its glaring eye to search for brother's blood, 
 
 In every town and village, house and hut, 
 
 On mountain and in vale, from coast to coast; 
 
 Nay, with the coils of chaos wind about 
 
 Our country; snatch her to the dark mid-air 
 
 Of lightning and of thunder, and there slash 
 
 With her in blindest fury, all the while 
 
 Crushing her vigor into streams of gore, 
 
 That, like the deluge, leave not one green herb. 
 
 fioom ! Boom ! Ye warships ! For did Grant not clutch 
 
 The monster, and securing, firm foot-room 
 
 Upon its crest, draw our republic up 
 
 Erom its grim coils, as it sank earthward ! Boom ! 
 
 Ye warships, oh ! a thousand times, Boom, boom ! 
 
 He smote the monster, cast it into the sea ; 
 
22 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 And when its carcass of revenge and hate 
 
 Rose on the waters — oh, a ghastliness, 
 
 As high as Heaven, that, fastened to our shore, 
 
 Would shut the sun out and breed pestilence 
 
 From age to age, — it moved before his prayer — 
 
 A breeze from Heaven; and then the day and night 
 
 Became a tempest and a tidal wave 
 
 Against the horror, so that, now, it drifts 
 
 Among the icebergs that chill not the child, 
 
 Held in the father's arms upon tJhe shore. 
 
 XT. 
 
 Hark! solemnly the chaplain chants the rite. 
 Hark! for where prayer is, there is Ood, and men 
 Here feel His presence touching them with faith 
 In aims sublimer than the quest of gold, 
 Pleasure, or empire. Here they feel, in sootn, 
 That noble deed, and bold inspiring thought 
 That flames the way to help our fellow-men, 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 23 
 
 Alone make life; that all is fleeting show, 
 That is not formative witih God on high 
 In shaping earth for human happiness. 
 In lightning flashes from their cloud of grief , 
 They see the hero scud on war's red rack 
 Across the marsh and stream, the hill and wood, 
 And by maintaining right supreme, become 
 An angel, whom they fall before, awe-struck. 
 Awe-struck, indeed; for clearly they discern 
 That anguish is the air the hero breathes 
 Through every pore, in his ascent on high 
 And bursting thro' the clouds that darken earth. 
 What ! think you that our captain was not racked 
 With agony, when he sat statuesque 
 Upon his charger on the clouded peak, 
 Above the thousand mountains breaking forth 
 With lightning and with thunder, and beheld 
 The valleys, thro' the blaze-rifts of the smoke, 
 Flooded with moaning men, all sires, or sons. 
 
24 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 Who fixed their stare on visions of their homes, 
 As they dashed down in cataracts from life? 
 Ah ! as above the crimson inland sea, 
 The carnage rose and rose, dense as the fog, 
 Beneath which wildest billows huddle close, 
 And helpless gasp, like sheep beneath the snow,- 
 How his each unseen nerve and chord of heart 
 Quivered and quivered ! if he was not swayed, 
 But stood firm, like an asp upon the hill, 
 Amid the awful tremor of its leaves, — 
 It was because his vision pierced the fog 
 Of gruesome carnage, and, beyond it, saw 
 Democracy waist deep in the whirling tide 
 That emptied into the shadow of the world, 
 Bereft of every ray, save those that warmed 
 His forehead from the halo of God's smile. 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 25 
 
 XII. 
 
 "What! was Democracy to be engulfed, 
 
 And disappear forever, or, at least, 
 
 For ages; as an island in mid-sea 
 
 Agleam with cascades and with fruitful groves, 
 
 Except where from the sky the mountain swoops 
 
 As with the rage of hunger, and darts steep 
 
 Upon the grazing, unsuspecting wave — 
 
 Sinks with its peak, its cascades and its groves, 
 
 The laden ships at anchor in its bay, 
 
 And with the last hope of the watching crew. 
 
 Adrift with famine, who begin again, 
 
 To cast the dice for one another's blood; 
 
 And leaves no trace, except the flocks of birds, 
 
 That rise in columns like volcanic smoke, 
 
 And scatter for the land that few can reach? 
 
 Was thus to perish bold Democracy, 
 
 The giant who had dashed a kingdom down, 
 
 Eor meddling with his soul ; iJhen, clutching fast 
 
26 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 The glaring, wild Atlantic 'mid" her whelps, 
 
 Freed not her fury from his grasp, until 
 
 He reached the region where he walked with God r 
 
 Unhampered by the whim or craft of Kings? 
 
 Democracy, that shook the sleeping wilds 
 
 And woke them into cities with his will, 
 
 Then seized invading despotism and hurled 
 
 Its bleeding carcass like a thunder-bolt, 
 
 Back to the old world thro' the clouds of war; 
 
 Declaring with a voice that shook from Heaven, 
 
 All the ill stars foredooming men at birth: 
 
 "In this New World shall thrive no Old World wrong! 
 
 Democracy, to perish in the act 
 
 Of towering on a mound of myriad men 
 
 Into the sky, and flinging from our suore, 
 
 With his fierce, lifted hands, and all his might, 
 
 The storm-mouthed monster of the Despot's get, 
 
 That from its lairs, the caverns on the coast, 
 
 Roamed rashly toward our mountains and broad plains. 
 
 rr 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 27 
 
 To crush beneath its soul-destroying wrath 
 
 Our brethren dark of face, in multitudes 
 
 Beyond all reckoning, except of Justice 
 
 That counts the unshed tear, and asks of Cain: 
 
 "Where is thy brother?" though his skulking soul 
 
 Be but the murmur in the smallest shell, 
 
 Imbedded in the marl beneath the deep? 
 
 "No" ; God said "No" ! the hero heard that voice, 
 
 And like a lightning did his spirit flash 
 
 Thro' every sinew of Democracy, 
 
 The giant, who, transfigured, drew his arms 
 
 Above him like a bow, and, with a spring, 
 
 Hurled forth the monster, raising, soon, a jet 
 
 From the abysmal billows into Heaven 
 
 In such a volume, it will never ceas 
 
 To fall in sunny showers upon our land, 
 
 And form a rainbow all around the globe. 
 
28 LAYING THE HEEO TO REST. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Rejoice, my countrymen! Lo! as the morn 
 Lifts from the sea the trumpet of the sun, 
 And blows a blast of light across the land, 
 Setting the grases in the mead and mount, 
 And blossoms in the orchard and the grove, 
 A-tingling bright with dew; so glory lifts 
 His trumpet from our country's depths of grief, 
 And, with the hero's deed and thought for sound 
 Sends forth a blast across the mountain range 
 Of rising ages, shaking every cloud 
 Into a fall of snow upon the peaks 
 To be a resting-place for angels' feet, 
 And the pure source of many a stream of joy, 
 To flash in cascades down the terraced slope, 
 Or, like the robin in and out the wood; 
 Then overflow the desert and the marsh, 
 And not in all the land leave one dry well 
 "Where snakes mav make a rlen and clare at thirst. 
 
LAYING THE IIKRO TO REST. 29 
 
 When, with a mossy bucket in his hand, 
 He glances down; for there he shall obtain 
 A draught of starlight on the sultriest day. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Behold! the Angel, Reverence, who sees 
 
 In men who act sublime their greatness only — 
 
 Sees them as factors in the age's march, 
 
 And, in the chief, sees all his mighty host, — 
 
 Arises into form august, from out 
 
 The grateful hearts of many mournful millions. 
 
 And bows before this soldier in repose. 
 
 Awakening his spirit with her love, 
 
 She steps with him upon the purple bloom 
 
 Of brotherhood, which he had sown, and which 
 
 At Riverside, now quickens with such growth, 
 
 It spreads across our land — nay, bursts aloft 
 
 Into a planet from the earth, before 
 
 The raptured vision of the Angel hosts 
 
30 LAYIXG THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 And of all men. Look! by its fragrance borne, 
 It rises thro' the azure toward the throne 
 With steps innumerable, each a sky 
 Of dazzling luminaries, raised for him 
 Who helps his fellow-men — who is, in sooth, 
 An angel by maintaining right supreme 
 Lo! as he mounts, he draws our country up 
 Into the space beyond the sun, where shine 
 The Duties and the Rights of Man, twin stars- — 
 More fulgent than the suns of nether space, 
 Were they all merged in one ; and there forever, 
 With trails of spirits radiant with joy, 
 And reaching further than the drifts of stars 
 Which night is ever snowing into space, 
 Shall float America, lit by the beams 
 Of those transcendant planets nearing God. 
 
 THE END. 
 
-^ .. 
 
 COMriENTS OF THE PRES5. 
 
 In his blank verse picture of the funeral of 
 General Grant, he has seized upon the pageantry 
 and the significance of the occasion, in a striking 
 degree. — Springfield Republican. 
 
 In his poem upon the burial of General Grant 
 the impression of the funeral cortege and of the 
 crowd is finely rendered, and with an unusually 
 comprehensive grouping of masses and feeling of 
 movement and sound.— Boston Literary World. 
 
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