Classic Poem

Here are we two, who breath first drew
Right opposite each other,
Within a quiet country town
And suckled each a mother;
The church drew me, the army he,
We met when war was over,
Within the self-same country town,
He resting, I a rover.

And now I crave above his grave
(Three-score and ten a'summing)
To drop my tear upon his bier
And say: " I'm soon a'coming. "
O, Torbert, gentle, gracious, brave,
Safe in the cannon's rattle,
Why shouldst thou in the Ocean wave
Alone, fight life's last battle?

Wide as the sea, thy cavalry
Surged up the mountains' shoring;
The mighty raid lit by thy blade
A Comet's flame restoring.
And last, a speck in plunging wreck,
With all of life's devotion,
Thou fought to shore, thyself no more,
Whelmed in the tropic ocean.

The vessel yards of Milford tap
Their adzes o'er him, sleeping,
They'll launch no hull as beautiful
As that beneath the reaping.
The millstones eat the corn and wheat
Like to the waves that tore him,
The pines repeat their moans so sweet,
the grass grows tender o'er him.

I do not see Headquarters' flag
Behind his escort flowing;
All that is done — his mother's son
Lies in the grave unknowing;
Gone are the cares of great careers
And gone is glory's riot;
There sleeps below, where he did grow,
The hero in his quiet.