Louisa May Alcott: With A Rose, published 1860

WITH A ROSE

That Bloomed on the Day of John Brown's Martyrdom.

In the long silence of the night,

    Nature's benignant power

Woke aspirations for the light

    Within the folded flower.

Its presence and the gracious day

    Made summer in the room,

But woman's eyes shed tender dew

    On the little rose in bloom.

Then blossomed forth a grander flower,

    In the wilderness of wrong,

Untouched by Slavery's bitter frost,

    A soul devout and strong.

God-watched, that century plant uprose,

    Far shining through the gloom,

Filling a nation with the breath

    Of a noble life in bloom.

A life so powerful in its truth,

    A nature so complete;

It conquered ruler, judge and priest,

    And held them at its feet.

Death seemed proud to take a soul

    So beautifully given,

And the gallows only proved to him

    A stepping-stone to heaven.

Each cheerful word, each valiant act,

    So simple, so sublime,

Spoke to us through the reverent hush

    Which sanctified that time.

That moment when the brave old man

    Went so serenely forth,

With footsteps whose unfaltering tread

    Reechoed through the North.

The sword he wielded for the right

    Turns to a victor's palm;

His memory Bounds forever more,

    A spirit-stirring psalm.

No breath of shame ran touch his shield,

    Nor ages dim its shine;

Living, he made life beautiful, -

    Dying, made death divine.

No monument of quarried stone,

    No eloquence of speech,

Can grave the lessons on the land

    His martyrdom will teach.

No eulogy like his own words,

    With hero-spirit rife,

"I truly serve the cause I love,

    By yielding up my life."

— L. M. Alcott.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 98