THE MEMORY OF FRANKLIN 

 By S. Weir Mitchell 



[Read at the Dinner, April 20.] 



A memory only? nay, for us who find 

 Familiar here the impress of his mind, 

 Warmed by his thought when glow the evening fires. 

 Hearing his genius in the whispering wires. 

 More than a memory he seems to tread 

 Our streets to-day, the quickest of the dead! 

 We know the face, the dome-like build of head, 

 The mirthful lips by humorous habit bred. 

 The sterner lines that mark the will to meet 

 In equal wise or victory or defeat. 

 How near us seems this nature frank and kind. 

 This equal comrade of the larger mind, 

 And yet so near the heart of all mankind. 

 Unharmed by flattery and unstirred by praise 

 He moved serenely through laborious days 

 Befriended ever by one gift of heaven 

 Not always surely unto genius given, — 

 The cool self-judgment void of all pretense, 

 The sense uncommon men call common-sense. 

 So lives in memory he who stands confessed 

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