Publication information
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Source: Lewiston Evening Journal
Source type: newspaper
Document type: poem
Document title: none
Author(s): Williams, Leonora B.
City of publication: Lewiston, Maine
Date of publication: 19 September 1901
Volume number: none
Issue number: none
Pagination: 4

 
Citation
Williams, Leonora B. [untitled]. Lewiston Evening Journal 19 Sept. 1901: p. 4.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
William McKinley (death: poetry); William McKinley (poetry).
 
Named persons
none.
 
Notes
About the author (p. 4): Leonora B. Williams, Brunswick, Me.
 
Document

 

[untitled]

There was silence in the chamber,
     Where the dying statesman lay,
And they knew, who watched beside him,
     That his life fast ebbed away.
Loving hands could nothing further
     Do, from pain to bring relief;
Sorrow-stricken, each one waited
     The departure of his Chief.

Hush and listen! he is singing,
     From his death-bed lying there,
As the evening shadows lengthen,
     Sounds a chant upon the air;
Still the loved ones watch beside him,
     Bound by never-ending ties,
While he sings in feeble accents
     Now, almost in Paradise.

He had borne, in life’s great conflict,
     Bravely forward, many a cross;
Duty-loving, ever-serving,
     Counting all but right, as dross,
Stricken by the coward’s bullet,
     Still of God, his song shall be.
And he chants with dying accents,
     “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

He had seen in many a battle
     Daylight fade, and darkness drear
Fall upon his country’s soldiers;
     His had been the part to cheer.
“Trust in God,” had been his watch-word
     O’er life’s dark and stormy sea;
In his dying hour, he singeth
     “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

Firm in faith, and brave in duty,
     Strong to meet his country’s needs;
Every trial brought new blessings,
     Every blessing onward leads.
God will chasten whom he loveth;
     Whom on earth more loved, than he?
While he singeth, angels beckon
     “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

Fainter grow the faltering accents
     Of the nation’s loved one there,
As he breathes his heart-felt utterance
     Unto God, in praise and prayer.
He must leave his loved companion,
     But in God her trust will be;
And the morning hours will bring him
     “Nearer , My God, to Thee.”

Toils of life are almost over,
     “Good-bye all. God’s will be done.”
God in Heaven, take thy servant,
     Thou, his light, his star, his sun.
Grant to all the sorrowing nation
     That, like him its song shall be,
In the joys of life, and sorrows,
     “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

     Sept. 15th, 1901.

 

 


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