Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LUTHER A. TODD, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LUTHER A. TODD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Gifted, and loved and praised
Last Line: And, smiling, cease thy moan.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Death; Grief; Kansas; Life; Obituaries; Dead, The; Sorrow; Sadness


GIFTED, and loved and praised
By every friend;
Never a murmur raised
Against him, to the end!
With tireless interest
He wrought as he thought best, --
And -- lo, we bend
Where now he takes his rest!

His heart was loyal, to
Its latest thrill,
To the home-loves he knew --
And now forever will, --
Mother and brother -- they
The first to pass away, --
And, lingering still,
The sister bowed to-day.

Pure as a rose might be,
And sweet, and white,
His father's memory
Was with him day and night: --
He spoke of him, as one
May now speak of the son, --
Sadly and tenderly,
Yet as a trump had done.

Say, then, of him: He knew
Full depths of care
And stress of pain, and you
Do him scant justice there, --
Yet in the lifted face
Grief left not any trace,
Nor mark unfair,
To mar its manly grace.

It was as if each day
Some new hope dawned --
Each blessing in delay,
To him, was just beyond;
Between whiles, waiting, he
Drew pictures cunningly --
Fantastic -- fond --
Things that we laughed to see.

Sometimes, as we looked on
His crayon's work,
Some angel-face would dawn
Out radiant, from the mirk
Of features old and thin,
Or jowled with double-chin,
And eyes asmirk,
And gaping mouths agrin.

That humor in his art,
Of genius born,
Welled warmly from a heart
That could not but adorn
All things it touched with love --
The eagle, as the dove --
The burst of morn --
The night -- the stars above.

Sometimes, amid the wild
Of faces queer,
A mother, with her child
Pressed warm and close to her;
This, I have thought, somehow,
The wife, with head abow,
Unreconciled,
In the great shadow now.

. . . . . . .

O ye of sobbing breath,
Put by all sighs
Of anguish at his death --
Turn -- as he turned his eyes,
In that last hour, unknown
In strange lands, all alone --
Turn thine eyes toward the skies,
And, smiling, cease thy moan.





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