Classic Poem

‘Good-night, my boy’; and with a smile
He turned his steps and sped away;
Since then 'tis but a little while,
And he is dead to-day;
Dead,—and the friend whom once I knew,
My comrade both in joy and pain,
So often tried and always true,
Will never smile again.

His days were many, and the world
Had most of all his thought and care;
But now his sails of toil were furled
In art's serener air.
The evening lamp, the storied page,
The mantling glass, the song, the jest,—
These turned the twilight of his age
To morning and to rest.

The thorny paths of life he knew;
His tender heart was quick to feel;
And wounds his pity wept to view,
His bounty glowed to heal.
Of worldly ways, of frailty's slips,
Of mortal sin, he had his share;
Yet still could breathe, with childhood's lips,
His artless childhood's prayer.

Good deeds were all the work he wrought;
Sweet thoughts, and merry, all he prized;
Nor power nor fame by him was sought,
Nor homely life despised.
Strife could not live before his face,
But wheresoe'er his footsteps fell
Came kindness, with its smile of grace,
And everything was well.

He did not strive to win the heights;
Enough for him the lowly vale,
The autumn sunset's pensive lights,
The autumn's perfumed gale:
But toilers on the upward slope,
Who greatly strove and bravely dared,
Had cheer of him, and felt new hope,
Howe'er their fortune fared.

To brighten life, where'er he went,
With laughter's sparkle, and to make
Home's fireside lovely with content,
For gentle humor's sake,—
That was his fate. Ah, darkly shows
The path where yesterday he shone,—
That downward path of many woes
That we must tread, alone.

Yet he, like us, had lost and grieved:
He knew how hard it is to bear,
When, lone and listless and bereaved,
We sink in dumb despair:
And could those lips, now marble chill,
But speak once more from that true heart,
With what a jocund, blithe good-will
They'd bid our grief depart!

It was but yesterday he went:
This is the room, and that the door:
When some few idle days are spent
'Twill all be as before:
The heavenly morning will destroy
This rueful dream of death and pain,
And I shall hear him say, ‘My boy,’
And clasp his hand again.