Classic Poem

Freed from the strife of this world, and the scorn of it,
Sweetly he sleeps on the emerald plain!
Never ambition, nor sorrow that's born of it,—
Sceptre or cross,—can afflict him again!
All that he lived for was truth and the fight for it;
Now all his battles are over and done.
Death gives him slumber, at last, and the night for it,—
Trials all ended and victory won!

They that reviled him may mourn to recover him,—
Knowing how gentle he was, and how brave!
Nothing he'll reck, where the wind blowing over him
Ripples the grasses that dream on his grave!
Though to our vision this dust be the last of him,
Low in the ground and deserted and lone,
Time will avenge all the woe that is past of him,
Fate will remember and justice atone.

After the fray and the heart-breaking pain of it,
Aliened affection and honor betrayed,
Here is the end, and the crown, and the gain of it,—
Cold in the earth where the victor is laid.
Stars will watch over him, silence lament for him,
Soft woodland whispers re-echo his knell,—
Bird-note and leaf-murmur tenderly blent for him,—
Comrade, and brother, and friend, Fare thee well!