F! for now a stormy morn and dark
The hour of greeting and of parting
brings;
Already on a rising wind yon bark
Spreads
her impatient wings.
Too hasty keel, a little while delay!
A moment tarry, O thou hurrying
dawn!
For long and sad will be the mourners’ day
When
their beloved is gone.
But vain the hands that beckon from the shore:
Alike our passion and our grief
are vain.
Behind him lies our little world: before
The
illimitable main.
Yet, none the less, about his moving bed
Immortal eyes a tireless vigil
keep—
An angel at the feet and at the head
Guard
his untroubled sleep.
Two nations bowed above a common bier,
Made one for ever by a martyred
son—
One in their agony of hope and fear,
And
in their sorrow one.
And thou, lone traveller of a waste so wide,
The uncharted seas that all must
pass in turn,
May the same star that was so long thy guide
O’er
thy last voyage burn.
No eye can reach where through yon sombre veil
That bark to its eternal haven
fares;
No earthly breezes swell its shadowy sail:
Only
our love and prayers.
