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| IN Collins Street standeth a statute tall, | |
| A statue tall, on a pillar of stone, | |
| Telling its story, to great and small, | |
| Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone; | |
| Weary and wasted, and worn and wan, | 5 |
| Feeble and faint, and languid and low, | |
| He lay on the desert a dying man; | |
| Who has gone, my friends, where we all must go. | |
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| There are perils by land, and perils by water, | |
| Short, I ween, are the obsequies | 10 |
| Of the landsman lost, but they may be shorter | |
| With the mariner lost in the trackless seas; | |
| And well for him, when the timbers start, | |
| And the stout ship reels and settles below, | |
| Who goes to his doom with as bold a heart, | 15 |
| As that dead man gone where we all must go. | |
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| Man is stubborn his rights to yield, | |
| And redder than dews at eventide | |
| Are the dews of battle, shed on the field, | |
| By a nation’s wrath or a despot’s pride; | 20 |
| But few who have heard their death-knell roll, | |
| From the cannon’s lips where they faced the foe, | |
| Have fallen as stout and steady of soul, | |
| As that dead man gone where we all must go. | |
| |
| Traverse yon spacious burial ground, | 25 |
| Many are sleeping soundly there, | |
| Who pass’d with mourners standing around, | |
| Kindred, and friends, and children fair; | |
| Did he envy such ending? ’twere hard to say; | |
| Had he cause to envy such ending? no; | 30 |
| Can the spirit feel for the senseless clay, | |
| When it once has gone where we all must go? | |
| |
| What matters the sand or the whitening chalk, | |
| The blighted herbage, the black’ning log, | |
| The crooked beak of the eagle-hawk, | 35 |
| Or the hot red tongue of the native dog? | |
| That couch was rugged, those sextons rude, | |
| Yet, in spite of a leaden shroud, we know | |
| That the bravest and fairest are earth-worms’ food, | |
| When once they’ve gone where we all must go. | 40 |
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| With the pistol clenched in his failing hand, | |
| With the death mist spread o’er his fading eyes, | |
| He saw the sun go down on the sand, | |
| And he slept, and never saw it rise; | |
| ’Twas well; he toil’d till his task was done, | 45 |
| Constant and calm in his latest throe, | |
| The storm was weathered, the battle was won, | |
| When he went, my friends, where we all must go. | |
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| God grant that whenever, soon or late, | |
| Our course is run and our goal is reach’d, | 50 |
| We may meet our fate as steady and straight | |
| As he whose bones in yon desert bleach’d; | |
| No tears are needed—our cheeks are dry, | |
| We have none to waste upon living woe; | |
| Shall we sigh for one who has ceased to sigh, | 55 |
| Having gone, my friends, where we all must go? | |
| |
| We tarry yet, we are toiling still, | |
| He is gone and he fares the best, | |
| He fought against odds, he struggled up hill, | |
| He has fairly earned his season of rest; | 60 |
| No tears are needed—fill our the wine, | |
| Let the goblets clash, and the grape juice flow, | |
| Ho! pledge me a death-drink, comrade mine, | |
| To a brave man gone where we all must go. | |
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