O friend, you do your manhood wrong, You do the noble dead one wrong, This just man’s, this wise statesman’s life Is nobler than the mimic strife. Of jesters in a Carnival, The painted clowns in mimic brawl, With wooden swords and buffoon song, With grinning madness rife, Driving the hopeless suicide To poison or the knife. I dare not look upon this form, From which the breath has fled, And say no life again shall warm The dust of Cleveland dead. But the high recording Angel Sublimely calls above, In eloquent words of love, “A longer and a nobler date Is the man’s who at Westland lies in state, For Fame proclaims him truly great, Far, far above all earthly fate-- The tumult and dust of mortal fate. The verdict of posterity, Written on a people’s heart, shall be: “No brief Olympiad can measure His fame who is a nation’s treasure, And Cleveland’s years in Heaven shall be A blissful immortality.” And from the far heights of the starry sky, Higher than Roman eagles fly, Comes the sweet echo, “Immortality!” And golden comets blazing through the spheres Of Heaven’s illimitable years Repeat the echo--“Immortality!” And in my ears still ringing seem The dulcet measures of a dream-- “Virtue shall never die.” In the pure gleam of God’s own eye It slakes its thirst from the clear stream Of Immortality. IN THE MORNING. [ANNIE MCREA, PADUCAH, 1902.] I looked at the hills in the morning, Sweet valleys lay smiling between. Then I lifted my soul to the Blessed, Whose love in His mercies are seen. The sun brought a flush as of roses To the green earth, and Heaven so blue, But a cloud hid the beautiful sunlight, And the sparkle died out of the dew. I prayed in my heart to the Savior That His love might illumine my way, That the sunshine and joy of His presence Would brighten each wearisome day; That strength for each duty be given, And each action be prompted by love, Till at last by the brightness of Heaven I should dwell with the angels above. The joy that to me has been given In language can never be told, And my dream of the glory of Heaven Is of Christ in the gateway of gold; And I pray that no cloud may o’ershadow The faith that my heart holds as true, Like the darkening clouds in the morning, When the sparkle died out of the dew. FOOTNOTES: [A] McCool was shot the same night by Major Bassett’s men. He was a ruffian of the lowest type, and had terrorized his neighborhood for years. [B] The fourteen lines following are of course a later interpolation.