A Requiem

WILLIAM MCKINLEY.

AYE! weep, Columbia, o’er thy noble dead;
Wide as the ocean is thy sorrow spread;
This man of men who sleeps in death to-day
Was Nature’s chosen child; and though away
His spirit wings its flight, to sunnier shores,
The glory of his birth and life are yours.

Yet in thy sorrow indignation burns,
That freedom’s bounty should meet such returns;
That the foul weed of anarchy should dare
To take its root, and bud and blossom here;
Bearing such fruit, in discontent and hate,
And murd’rous madness that seeks but the great.

But for the heart that mourns its mate to-day,
In the fair prime of manhood swept away,
The gentle woman’s heart that stands alone,
Words have no power to comfort or atone
For its great loss; but he who gives us breath
Can soften e’en the bitterness of death. [38][39]

Alone she mourneth not, for, far and wide,
Sweeps on the wail of mourning, as a tide
At full o’erflowing, every boundary burst;
She hath this comfort—he was hers at first,
His country’s afterward. And so at last,
He shall be hers again, all sorrow passed.

So bear him homeward, to his place of rest,
In the pure dignity he honored best;
And bend, Columbia, thy sun-kissed head
In meek submission o’er th’ illustrious dead,
Remembering in thy sorrow, God hath might,
All things, in his good time, to flood with light.