We were but three, and when he passed
I was the loneliest and last;
He was so fit for life and glee,
Why did they take him and not me?
He came from school among the girls,
His head hung round with chestnut curls,
And girl-like in his sense of dress,
Without our type of waywardness,
And grew, with boyhood spirit free,
To easy popularity.

From babyhood to birth again
He pleased the women like the men,
And every street and every mile
Cheered with the sunshine of his smile.
He had the eye disease would flee,
The nerve for coolest surgery;
Death felt his hand and juggled weak,
'Twere hope and health to hear him speak;
Healers and doctors of his fame
Stood down when he, decisive, came;
At his footstep the sick attend
To greet the healer in the friend.

The life of feats, of sports the star,
Tall, animated, muscular,
The bolt, descended from his birth,
Smote him, as in a night, to earth,
And not all lands, with balsam airs,
Could bring him back, more than our prayers.

At last he faced remorseless Death
In the cold mountains' winter breath,
And melted in his cabin's glow,
Like to a melting flake of snow.

He lies where did his heart incline—
Among the dead in Brandywine—
A story but a chapter read,
A poem thought, unfinished.