Poems (Odom)/Our Dead President
OUR DEAD PRESIDENT.
The sound of muffled drums is heard,
The dull boom of the minute-gun
Breaks on the sunlit morning air;
The tale is told—the deed is done.
The dull boom of the minute-gun
Breaks on the sunlit morning air;
The tale is told—the deed is done.
A nation's mighty pulse is stirred
With grief and sorrow, all too deep
To find expression save in tears;
In sacred silence let us weep,—
With grief and sorrow, all too deep
To find expression save in tears;
In sacred silence let us weep,—
Weep for our chieftain's head laid low
Before the vile assassin's thrust;
A country's hope in fair, fresh flower
Down-trodden to the very dust.
Before the vile assassin's thrust;
A country's hope in fair, fresh flower
Down-trodden to the very dust.
The world looks on with bated breath,
And shrinks affrighted from the blow
That spread the pall of death abroad,
And draped the whole fair land with woe;
And shrinks affrighted from the blow
That spread the pall of death abroad,
And draped the whole fair land with woe;
Crashing its way through every heart,
Filling the sternest soul with gloom,
Till North and South, in common grief,
Clasp hands above his open tomb.
Filling the sternest soul with gloom,
Till North and South, in common grief,
Clasp hands above his open tomb.
Binding the fragrant immortelles
Of deathless sorrow wet with tears,
To wreathe around his "storied urn,"
And bloom in all the future years.
Of deathless sorrow wet with tears,
To wreathe around his "storied urn,"
And bloom in all the future years.
Each tender woman's heart must feel
Some pang for her who mourns to-day
The breaking of her dearest ties,
Life's proudest honors snatched away.
Some pang for her who mourns to-day
The breaking of her dearest ties,
Life's proudest honors snatched away.
The desolation that o'erspreads
This land to its remotest part,
Is lost beside the mighty grief
That sits within her widowed heart.
This land to its remotest part,
Is lost beside the mighty grief
That sits within her widowed heart.
The world that crowned him with its bays
May cherish him with fleeting thought,
But all her life will wear the trace
Of this sad ruin fate has wrought.
May cherish him with fleeting thought,
But all her life will wear the trace
Of this sad ruin fate has wrought.
For her we bend the suppliant knee
In simple, tearful, earnest prayer,
That she may trust the Chastening Arm,
And find a Christian's comfort there.
In simple, tearful, earnest prayer,
That she may trust the Chastening Arm,
And find a Christian's comfort there.
Galveston, September 19, 1881.