Classic Poem

The day was night, and the night was day,
And the earth was cold and drear;
An iceberg nigh loomed ghostly high
O'er a funeral train and bier.

The starry flag hung half-mast high,
While the kindly stars above
In the night-in-day looked down alway
With a distant, helpless love.

God's sun was dead so long ago
We lived in endless night,
But the sad far stars gazed through the bars
Of the weird Boreal light.

The Polar blast swept o'er a plain
As smooth as the waveless sea,
Like a voiceless breath from the lips of Death,
So fiercely, silently.

We scooped his grave in the iron earth
Of the ever frozen zone;
And the strong man lay with his kindred clay,
As cold and dead and lone.

No choir may sing his requiem,
No shaft may mark his tomb;
Go place his name on the roll of fame,
Where the brave find ever room.

Though flowers deck not the distant grave,
Nor tears bedew its turf,
We hear his dirge in the solemn surge
Of the ever sounding surf.