ICHABOD
by: John Greenleaf Whittier
(1807-1892)
- O fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
- Which once he wore!
- The glory from his gray hairs gone
- Forevermore!
-
- Revile him not, the Tempter hath
- A snare for all;
- And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
- Befit his fall!
-
- Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
- When he who might
- Have lighted up and led his age,
- Falls back in night.
-
- Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
- A bright soul driven,
- Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
- From hope and heaven!
-
- Let not the land once proud of him
- Insult him now,
- Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
- Dishonored brow.
-
- But let its humbled sons, instead,
- From sea to lake,
- A long lament, as for the dead,
- In sadness make.
-
- Of all we loved and honored, naught
- Save power remains;
- A fallen angel's pride of thought,
- Still strong in chains.
-
- All else is gone; from those great eyes
- The soul has fled:
- When faith is lost, when honor dies,
- The man is dead!
-
- Then, pay the reverence of old days
- To his dead fame;
- Walk backward, with averted gaze,
- And hide the shame!
"Ichabod" is reprinted
from The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier.
Ed. H.E.S. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1894. |
MORE POEMS BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |
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