Poems Sigourney 1827/The Funeral
THE FUNERAL.
I saw a dark-robed train, who sadly bare
A lifeless burden toward the house of God.
I enter'd there,—for I had heard 'twas good
To see the end of man. Then slowly woke
The organ's dirge-like strain,—soft—solemn—sweet;—
It's mournful modulation seem'd to breathe
A soul of sorrow o'er the slumbering air,
With its deep-drawn and linked melody
Enforcing tears. But at the words, sublime,
Of Inspiration,—"though we seem to sleep,
As for a moment,—we shall rise, be changed,
And in the twinkling of an eye put on
The victor robe of immortality,"—
Quick, at the warmth of so divine a faith
Vanish'd those tears,—as fleets the transient dew
From the morn's eye.
There lay the form of one
Who many a year had, in that hallowed place,
Constant as came the day which God had bless'd,
Appeared to pay his vows.—Yes,—there he rose,
With reverend front,—and strong, majestic frame,
Where now as powerless as the smitten babe,
He waits for other hands to bear him forth.
Firm at each post of piety and peace
Where Christ hath bade his servants watch, he stood,
Even till the gather'd shades of evening blanch'd
His shuddering temples with unmelting frost.
He had the praise of men who knew to prize
The noiseless tenor of an upright course;—
And he had drank of sorrow.—Those who shed
The holy charities around his home,
Had long been tenants of the voiceless tomb;
And from that home, and those bright-shadowing trees.
The lingering solace of his hermit hours,
He by a freak of winged wealth was driven.
But now his head on that cold pillow rests,
Where sleepless anguish dare not plant a thorn.
No more his bruised heart pours strong incense forth
To Him who smote it,—nor his lonely tears
Freshen the turf where his loved treasures lay.
—And is there cause to weep, that yon pale clay
Should liberate its tortured prisoner?
Mourn we, because the radiant realms of bliss
Have gain'd a guest?—or that the countless ills
Which poise on vulture wing o'er helpless man,
Have lost a victim? Is it time to weep,
When at this very hour, perchance, the soul
Reads in the sun-bright register of Heaven
The need of all its discipline,—and pours
Its rapturous being forth to the great sire
In one eternal hymn?