Classic Poem

(GARFIELD)


The day dies softly, veiled with roseate gold;
A few white clouds, like phantom ships, float by,
And fleck the vaulted height of ether blue,
While Darkness lights the candles of the sky.

The night at Elberon falls fair and clear,
And Silence broods upon it like a dove;
A dreamy beauty rests upon the shore,
Made radiant by the beacon-lights above.

The grand old ocean, ceasing from its toils,
To-night sounds not its lash of angry strife,
But sadly, with a low, weird monotone,
It beats out, with a moan, the sands of life.

The broken wheel rests in the dreary gloom,
Death's sickle lies beside the garnered sheaves;
The greatness of a Nation's hope is gone!
" Dead! " fallen softly ere the autumn leaves!

The solemn tongues of dead bells catch the sound,
And wearily they mourn the night away;
From North, South, East, and West the echo comes,
While sackcloth greets the opening eye of Day.

Dead! Dead! Can Nature mark our grief and smile?
The sun that yesterday shone on his bloom
To-day rests on a marbled, upturned face,
To-morrow scatters sunbeams on his tomb.

" My God! " a wife's heart breaks upon that cry!
A mother's life-light dieth with the blow,
And orphaned ones grieve bitterly their loss —
Wife's, mother's, children's, — still a Nation's woe!

The dead bells toll unto our stricken hearts,
A Nation's tears are softly, sadly shed!
The mother Earth holds out her shielding arms
Wide open to receive our noble dead.

Ay! " dust to dust! " Oh, God! we falter here, —
The darkness blinds us and we cannot see;
We lose our way and stumble in the gloom
Upon the bounds that hold us back from Thee!

Ah! dead! and dead the searing, bloody Past.
We have forgiven, and forget we would;
In this our country's deepest woe to-day
We clasp our hands, one common brotherhood!

Dead! yes! But love will weave a deathless wreath,
The dewdrops, crystals from a Nation's tears;
The echoes of his life shall come again,
And roll amid the floodtide of the years!