Poems (Douglas)/Speak Gently of the Dead

by Sarah Parker Douglas

Speak Gently of the Dead.

The dead!—nay, mention not the dead,
 Thy silence now they claim;
Wherefore select the low-laid head,
 If slander be thy theme?

Have they no virtues to record?
 Then let their vices lie
If from the upright path they've err'd,
 Who says—"So have not I?"

The dead—the lost—whate'er their fault
 May've been in life, there's some,
Some who, with heart all sorrow-fraught,
 Bewail their lonely home;

Some who have miss'd them from their hearth,
 And could with tears reveal
Such virtues of the "laid in earth,"
 As purest bosoms feel.

But be it as it may—tis not
 For us to wound their fame,
And hold to view each tarnish'd spot
 Once flung upon their name—

Perhaps by envy, for there are
 Tongues that, with scorpion cling,
Lay venom'd hold on character,
 E'en till they lose their sting.

But ah! they might in pity spare
 The sleepers 'neath the sod;
E'en though their heart was prone to err,
 Their gracious judge is God.

Then who are we who so condemn
 Our fellow-mortals here?
Arraigned at the same bar with them
 All must at last appear;

Each one to answer for his own,
 Not for his neighbour's guile;
Who then, before that awful throne,
 Can clear himself the while?

Ah! then, speak gently of the dead,
 When borne from earth away;
The green sod resting on their head
 Might shield from calumny!