As when a father dies, his children draw <br />About the empty hearth, their loss to cheat <br />With uttered praise & love, & oft repeat <br />His all-familiar words with whispered awe. <br />The honored habit of his daily law, <br />Not for his sake, but theirs whose feeble feet <br />Need still that guiding lamp, whose faith, less sweet, <br />Misses that tempered patience without flaw, <br />So do we gather round thy vacant chair, <br />In thine own elm-roofed, amber-rivered town, <br />Master & Father! For the love we bear, <br />Not for thy fame's sake, do we weave this crown, <br />And feel thy presence in the sacred air, <br />Forbidding us to weep that thou art gone.<br /><br />Emma Lazarus<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-r-w-e/
