The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

The earth may ring, from shore to shore,
     With echoes of a glorious name,
But he whose loss our tears deplore
     Has left behind him more than fame.

For when the death-frost came to lie
     On Leggett's warm and mighty heart,
And quenched his bold and friendly eye,
     His spirit did not all depart.

The words of fire that from his pen
     He flung upon the lucid page
Still move, still shake the hearts of men,
     Amid a cold and coward age.

His love of Truth, too warm, too strong,
     For Hope or Fear to chain or chill,
His hate of tyranny and wrong,
     Burn in the breasts they kindled still.

So lived and died William Leggett. What a rebuke of party perfidy, of political meanness, of the common arts and stratagems of demagogues, comes up from his grave! How the cheek of mercenary selfishness crimsons at the thought of his incorruptible integrity! How heartless and hollow pretenders, who offer lip service to freedom, while they give their hands to whatever work their slaveholding managers may assign them; who sit in chains round the crib of governmental patronage, putting on the spaniel, and putting off the man, and making their whole lives a miserable lie, shrink back from a contrast with the proud and austere dignity of his character! What a comment on their own condition is the memory of a man who could calmly endure the loss of party favor, the reproaches of his friends, the malignant assaults of his enemies, and the fretting evils of poverty, in