THE BURIAL OF ARNOLD,
MEMBER OF THE SENIOR CLASS OF YALE COLLEGE.
Ye’ve gathered to your place of prayer
With slow and measured tread;
Your ranks are full, your mates all there;
But the soul of one has fled.
He was the proudest in his strength,
The manliest of ye all;
Why lies he at that fearful length,
And ye around his pall?
Ye reckon it in days since he
Strode up that foot-worn aisle,
With his dark eye flashing vividly,
And his lip wreathed with a smile.
Oh! had it been but told you then
To mark whose lamp was dim,
From out yon rank of fresh-lipped men,
Would ye have singled him?
Whose was the sinewy arm which flung
Defiance to the ring?
Whose laugh of victory loudest rung,
Yet not for glorying?
Whose heart, in generous deed and thought,
No rivalry might brook,
And yet distinction claiming not?
There lies he; go and look!
On now! his requiem is done;
The last deep prayer is said.
On to his burial, comrades! on,
With the noblest of the dead!
Slow! for it presses heavily;
It is a man ye bear!
Slow! for our thoughts dwell wearily
On the noble sleeper there.
Tread lightly, comrades! we have laid
His dark locks on his brow
Like life, save deeper light and shade;
We’ll not disturb them now.
Tread lightly; for ’tis beautiful,
That blue-veined eyelid’s sleep,
Hiding the eye death left so dull;
Its slumber we will keep.
Rest now! his journeying is done;
Your feet are on his sod.
Death’s chain is on your champion;
Here waiteth he his God!
Aye, turn and weep! ’tis manliness
To be heart-broken here;
For the grave of earth’s best nobleness
Is watered by the tear.