Cofachiqui, and Other Poems/Garfield memorial

by Castello Newton Holford

GARFIELD MEMORIAL.

IT is over! It is done!
 Death has conquered! Hear the knell
 Pealing slowly from each bell,
And the solemn roar of gun.

See the country's banner bright,
 Which the stars of heaven adorn,
 Gay with colors of the morn,
Wreathed with hue of stormy night.

From lakes to gulf, from sea to sea,
 One universal funeral pall
 So deep and dark envelops all,
Surpassing strange and sad to see.

In any age or any land
 The mightiest king who e'er laid down
 At Death's command the jeweled crown
Had never obsequies so grand;

Had for him flags at half-mast hung
 Around the world-his grave ne'er knew
 A hundred million mourners true
Of kindred race and common tongue.

But these imposing rites of grief
 Are for a plain and simple man,
 But higher rank holds no one than
A grand republic's fitting chief.

Well were his worth and valor tried
 On Chicamauga's dreadful day,
 When Bragg's impetuous legions gray
Came rushing like a stormy tide;

And burst like torrent o'er its banks—
 'Mid leaden rain and thunder crash
 And war-cloud dun and lightning flash
They broke the Northmen's reeling ranks.

But when that dismal day was done,
 As bravely as the knights of old
 E'er fighting won their spurs of gold
His wreath of double stars was won.

But not upon that bloody field
 Was such high courage e'er displayed
 As when upon his death-bed laid
He fought with death and would not yield.

And through that contest long and drear,
 When fate in trembling balance hung,
 Full many a million hearts were wrung
With mingled hope, suspense and fear.

They hoped that somehow nature's laws
 Might be defied by his strong will
 And highest human healing skill
Might snatch him from Death's cruel jaws.

They felt the pang of hope deferred
 Till vanished hope like cloud-wrapped star,
 When one sad midnight trembled far
Along the wires the dreaded word.

A strange coincidence appears:
 From Chicamauga's bloody day
 Till dead the gallant Garfield lay
Had passed just eighteen years.

It seems vagary strange, his fate,
 Unscathed by war's wild rage, to fall
 Slain by a coward mean and small,
And he offenseless, brave and great.

But well for him and well for all—
 Well for his great and growing fame,
 Distinction high and deathless name,
That he did not in battle fall,

Did not in that mad tumult pass
 To join that almost countless throng—
 That roll of martyr braves so long
We can but mourn and praise en masse.

For little knew the millions then
 How large of brain and large of heart,
 How fit to play a noble part
He was, as chief 'mong mighty men.

Long, long bent o'er his dying bed
 In dread suspense a nation hung,
 And foes who with sword, pen and tongue
Have fought him living bless him dead.

The high, dark waves of party strife,
 The war-engendered passions strong,
 The bitter feuds nursed hot and long,
Sank still and cold as ebbed his life.

Closed is the breach 'twixt South and North;
 When dies the common country's chief
 Throbs hot with lightning words of grief
Each wire from Dixie stretching forth.

The ocean-sundered Saxon race
 Grief shows yet bound by one strong chord,
 And Britain's queen and London's lord
Among the mourners take their place.

The dirges on our prairies rise,
 They're echoed back from Shannon's vale,
 The banks of Clyde prolong the wail
And Thames's millions add their sighs.

Heaven grant our land that long may last
 The holy peace 'round Garfield's bier;
 That the quenched fires of hate may ne'er
Blaze forth again as in the past.

It was not thus when Lincoln died—
 When lost to us that precious life
 High rose again the waves of strife;
He, living, might have stayed the tide.

The evil is—let good come thence,
 That not to us a second time
 Shall be th' assassin's horrid crime
Deep loss without a recompense.