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To R. B. H.

At The Dinner To The President, Boston, June 26, 1877

How to address him? awkward, it is true

Call him "Great Father," as the Red Men do?

Borrow some title? this is not the place

That christens men Your Highness and Your Grace;

We tried such names as these awhile, you know,

But left them off a century ago.

His Majesty? We've had enough of that

Besides, that needs a crown; he wears a hat.

What if, to make the nicer ears content,

We say His Honesty, the President?

Sir, we believed you honest, truthful, brave,

When to your hands their precious trust we gave,

And we have found you better than we knew,

Braver, and not less honest, not less true!

So every heart has opened, every hand

Tingles with welcome, and through all the land

All voices greet you in one broad acclaim,

Healer of strife! Has earth a nobler name?

What phrases mean you do not need to learn;

We must be civil, and they serve our turn

"Your most obedient humble" means - means what?

Something the well-bred signer just is not.

Yet there are tokens, sir, you must believe;

There is one language never can deceive

The lover knew it when the maiden smiled;

The mother knows it when she clasps her child;

Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale,

Words grope and stumble; this will tell their tale

Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence,

But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence.

Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits you there, -

North, South, East, West, from all and everywhere!