C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
A Dirge
By Thomas William Parsons (18191892)
S
One that comes across the wave,
From the oppression of his care,
To the freedom of the grave;
Wearing body, wasting brain,
To the rest beneath the trees,—
The forgetting of all pain;
To the rest that shall not see
To the sleep that shall not hear
Nor feel, the world’s vulgarity.
In his pall of foreign oak,
To the uncomplaining crowd
Where ill word was never spoke.
Dreams of pleasure, dreams of pain,
Hopes that tremble, joys that weep,
Loves that perish, visions vain—
Where he was before his birth;
With the ruby, with the rose,
With the harvest, earth in earth!
After battle, sorely spent,
Wounded, but a welcome guest
In the Chief’s triumphal tent.