Classic Poem

And thou-hast gone — the Archer's poison'd dart,
Hath sent the death-pang to thy noble heart,
Sepulchral stillness settles round thy form,
And that mild face, with generous feeling warm,
No more beams out to light a kindred ray,
In eyes now doubly dimmed since thou hast pass'd away.

Thine was a Martyr's transit — hallow'd zeal,
Bore thee right on in deeds of Christian love,
But soon did angel accents downward steal —
" The crown, the palm-branch, wait thee now above. "
In that soft cadence pain was lulled to rest,
And the dread scourge, to thee, a Messenger, how blest!

When to the trumpet's clang the warrior hies,
His life-blood pledging to his native shore,
And struggling nobly, rattling hail defies,
Shouts mid his pangs, and triumphs stained with gore,
Then Freedom chants her eulogistic song,
And bids the distant age the swelling strain prolong.

And when in Duty's van the Christian falls,
Foremost and first mid pestilence and death,
Prompt to respond wherever suffering calls,
And mid his labors yielding back his breath,
Perish the thought that He should die unwept,
And have no sacred shrine in which his name is kept.

Soldier of Jesus, thou has served thy Lord,
With faith unshrinking to the latest hour,
Pass onward, upward, to thy bright reward,
The starry crown, the amaranthine bower;
Thine was the turmoil of the battle plain;
Now thine with Christ for aye a " King and Priest " to reign.

One cypress bough above thy grave we place,
Betokening sorrow for a Church bereft;
One line of grief upon that stone we trace,
For friends and loved ones thou hast early left;
Then scatter flowers upon thy lowly bed,
And tears of chasten'd Joy are all the tears we shed.