The Nation's badge of woe!)

The cannon's sudden, sullen boom,--
The bells that toll of death and doom,--
The rolling of the drums,--
The dreadful Car that comes?

Cursed be the hand that fired the shot!
The frenzied brain that hatched the plot!
Thy Country's Father slain
By thee, thou worse than Cain!

Tyrants have fallen by such as thou,
And Good hath followed--May it now!
(God lets bad instruments
Produce the best events.)

But he, the Man we mourn to-day,
No tyrant was: so mild a sway
In one such weight who bore
Was never known before!

Cool should he be, of balanced powers,
The Ruler of a Race like ours,
Impatient, headstrong, wild,--
The Man to guide the Child!

And this _he_ was, who most unfit
(So hard the sense of God to hit!)
Did seem to fill his Place.