Ichabod
So 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 the light withdrawn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!
Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.The lyrical form of this poem is abab.1. Ichabod is in Hebrew "inglorious" (1 Samuel 4:21).Whittier's opening recalls John Milton's Paradise Lost, Book I, where Satan says to his fellow fallen angel Beelzebub:If thou beest he -- but oh how fall'n! how chang'd From him who, in the happy realms of light, Cloth'd with transcendent brightness didst outshine Myriads though bright! (84-87). "This poem was the outcome of the surpriseand grief and forecast of evil consequenceswhich I felt on reading the seventh of Marchspeech of Daniel Webster in support of the`compromise,' and the Fugitive Slave Law.No partisan or personal enmity dictated it.On the contrary my admiration of the splendidpersonality and intellectual power of the greatSenator was never stronger than when I laiddown his speech, and, in one of the saddestmoments of my life, penned my protest. Isaw, as I wrote, with painful clearness its sureresults, -- the Slave Power arrogant and defiant,strengthened and encouraged to carry out itsscheme for the extension of its baleful system,or the dissolution of the Union, the guarantiesof personal liberty in the free States broken down,and the whole country made the hunting-ground of slave-catchers. In the horror of such a vision,so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of stern and sorrowfulrebuke.But death softens all resentments, and theconsciousness of a common inheritance of frailtyand weakness modifies the severity of judgment. Years after, in The Lost Occasion,I gave utterance to an almost universal regret that the great statesman did not live to see theflag which he loved trampled under the feet ofSlavery, and, in view of this desecration, makehis last days glorious in defence of "Libertyand Union, one and inseparable." [Whittier's note, p. 186.]
