William McKinley

Died Sept. 14th, 1901.

On the hushed depths of midnight harshly breaking,
     What brazen voices tell their tale of grief?
“O sleepers! one has slept to know no waking—
                    The nation’s chief!”

Cease, idle bells, your discord and your lying!
     Heaven has yet greater work for him to do!
Vainly we strive to still our hearts’ replying,
                    “It is too true!”

That gallant soul, that mind of master showing,
     That ringing voice which swayed the breathless floor,
That kindly smile, have passed beyond our knowing
                    Forevermore.

O Power Inscrutable! was there no sparing
     This life so precious throughout all the land?
No strength of prayer, no skill of leech repairing,
                    To stay thy hand?

How great our need; how few such clear-eyed leaders
     Thou knowest! and their want, for good or ill
Whose arbiters stern-visaged War decreed us,
                    Is greater still.

But if it be true that the great Departed
     Still guide in paths where once their feet were set,
He, who served Country life-long and whole-hearted,
                    Is with us yet.

The gray dawn pales. The muffled guns are waking.
     A nation’s sorrow thunders o’er the deeps;
And in a Western town, with sobs heartbreaking,
                    A small child weeps.