Classic Poem

Why rolls the solemn, muffled drum,
And peal the notes of wo?
As on the breeze their accents float,
So mournfully and slow:
Why stoops yon spangled banner
From its glorious seat above?
And why does yon procession
In funereal silence move?

From its frail abode of sorrow
Has a noble spirit fled;
A young and gallant soldier steeps
Among the silent dead;
And yonder are his weeping friends,
The generous and the brave,
To bid a long, a last farewell,
And lay him in the grave.

He fell;—not in the battle-field,
Where war's loud thunders sound,
Where heaps of slain and wounded lie
Along the bloody ground;
But darker was his hapless fate,
By grim disease to fall,
Than have the flag of triumph
O'erspread his funeral pall.

He died;—not in his early home,
So dear to fancy's view,
Where once among the scenes of youth
His rapturous moments flew:
No dear relation at his side
Received his parting breath;
An orphan, in a distant land,
He closed his eyes in death.

But bitterly was shed for him
Affection's warmest tear;
And many youthful cheeks were wet,
Around his lonely bier.
And the hearts of his companions
Shall be his sacred urn,
Till all the friends who weep for him
To dust again return.

His mortal frame is mouldering
Beneath the dreary clod;
His spirit has return'd
To its Creator and its God:
Then rest thee, brother soldier,
In thy lone but peaceful tomb,
Till the angels' trump shall call thee,
In the final day of doom!

May'st thou, at that dread moment,
In immortal glory rise,
Robed in the spotless uniform
Of saints beyond the skies;
And there may we all meet thee,
On that celestial shore,
Where sorrow turns to gladness,
And where friends shall part no more!