Classic Poem

They who in the churchyard sleep,
Or the bosom of the deep,
Or beneath the sabre's sweep,
Are not all that die;
Other loved ones pass away,
Whom we mourn as dead, while they
With the living hie.

Homeward turns the funeral train;
“Brother! freed from mortal pain,
Thou in warmth wilt rise again
From thy cold repose;
When the sea its dead shall yield,
And the gorgéd battle-field
Shall its lips unclose.”

Time dries tears; and jest and laugh
Crown the brimming cup we quaff,
Long before his epitaph
Moss and age efface;
Nay, the shipwreck's fearful story,
Or the combat's victims gory,
Years from memory chase.

But when boyhood's melodies
Shed their dew in festive eyes,
Through soft mists we see arise
Phantom-like, the friend,
Dead, yet living, who from home,
Is in exile doomed to roam
To life's dreary end.