A Nation’s Grief

We grieve, we mourn,
Our heart goes out in prayer
And supplication.
Would that this cup
Had been turned from us,
That our Comrade
And our brother
Had gone not hence.

We only faintly comprehend,
This prince of men
McKinley
As a full natural man,
Part of the workings of God’s plans
Shown dimly.
We see things, not as they are
Our sight is never far
Nor wide.
The chieftain’s tragic end
May to greater freedom, lend
A pardonable pride.

Now, heart-sore, grief stricken
We see shades thicken
O’er the land
Forgetting in our pain
We shall look on his life again,
In a future man.

The light has kindly lead [sic]
The footsteps of the dead,
To a well-deserved rest
In the mansions of the blest;
And to that lofty height
Our prayer goes up this night,
God grant him rest and peace
And from care a long surcease.