THE QUEEN'S WREATH ON THE PRESIDENT'S BIER.
Still westward through the night in silence sweeping,
Wife of a hero, watching by thy dead;
On through a nation round thee, silent, weeping!
—Thou weepest not until thy task be sped.
They meet thee still in city after city,
To honour and to mourn their dead and thine,
With bared heads kneeling, hushed in awe and pity
For crime inhuman met with grace divine;
Saluting ever with restrained emotion
One bier, and on it laid one Funeral Wreath,
Borne from the mother land beyond the Ocean;—
The hand of Love above the hand of Death.
All hearts thus owning as with one pulse beating
Goodness and truth,—the eternal and unseen;—
The hearts of two great kindred nations meeting
Through the true heart of one true widowed Queen.
Oh, Queen! 'tis not thy Crown of Empire only,
Thy crown of sorrow hallows thee to this!
And thou, new mourner! fear not to be lonely,
Since of such woe is born earth's saving bliss.
Once more
“the veil grows thin” the heavens effacing!
One triumph more through paths in anguish trod;
Two nations through two women's hearts embracing,
One People bowing low before one God!
