We praise not now the poet's art, <br />The rounded beauty of his song; <br />Who weighs him from his life apart <br />Must do his nobler nature wrong. <br /> <br />Not for the eye, familiar grown <br />With charms to common sight denied, <br />The marvellous gift he shares alone <br />With him who walked on Rydal-side; <br /> <br />Not for rapt hymn nor woodland lay, <br />Too grave for smiles, too sweet for tears; <br />We speak his praise who wears to-day <br />The glory of his seventy years. <br /> <br />When Peace brings Freedom in her train, <br />Let happy lips his songs rehearse; <br />His life is now his noblest strain, <br />His manhood better than his verse! <br /> <br />Thank God! his hand on Nature's keys <br />Its cunning keeps at life's full span; <br />But, dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these, <br />The poet seems beside the man! <br /> <br />So be it! let the garlands die, <br />The singer's wreath, the painter's meed, <br />Let our names perish, if thereby <br />Our country may be saved and freed!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bryant-on-his-birthday/
