ear not,—I shall not tell of all the woe,
The misery Jo's death did clear foreshow.
Why should I try those dark hours to recall,
Dwell on the blank that fell upon us all?
O regal Death, you wear a changeful crown,
You come with gentle smile or tyrant frown!
We know sometimes with terror you assail,
Or to sweet rest you touch the eyelids pale:
That to the living, from your unseen train,
Too oft remorse doth bring its aching pain,
And to the sorrows that bereavement brings,
The earthly needings like a horror clings.
Too dreadful was the time between the day
I reached the camp and he was laid away.
Yes, I have lived through saddened hours and dark,
Known trials that on life have left their mark;
I've my own share of keenest anguish seen,
For all too soon my life had failure been;
I knew what 'twas to miss the hoped-for goal,
And feel the iron enter in my soul;
Yet only then I saw all hope depart,
To come no more when Jo received death's dart;
And still more black became the gloom profound,
Between that hour and the burial ground.
Her father told her—how I do not know.
When I told him, he reeled as from a blow;
I did not dare to go and look on her,
Of tidings evil I the messenger.
Yet later in her sorrow I could share
When in the dusk we took Jo's body there.
A dreary, dreary winter day was that,
Deep lay the snow upon the lonesome flat;
Slowly the big white flakes were falling round,
And in a deeper shroud the hills enwound.
You should not think the hands of friends forgot
To dig a pathway to the chosen spot.
Slowly through white the black procession passed,
And stood beside the open grave at last.
Plet, speechless, tearless, to her father clung,
A sight so pitiful each heart was wrung.
By one most worthy a few lines were read,
In simple service for untimely dead.
The end was reached when, like a sudden knell,
The clods all frozen on the coffin fell.
Nor was there lack of kindly effort made
To ease the grief on her so heavy laid.
All in the camp had hunger in their heart
To her some grain of comfort to impart;
But such her feeling that they must forego,
And leave her silent in her utter woe.