Poems (Odom)/Tribute to the Hon. Jacob S. Terger
TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE JACOB S. YERGER.
Hark! hark! a slow and mournful sound is breaking The sultry stillness of the morning air;It whispers of a "sleep that knows no waking," Of sad and loving hearts that swell to bursting there.Let no wild voice of sorrow rise above him, In holy silence lay him down to rest;Embalmed in bitter tears from those who love him, His great heart silent in his icy breast.
He needs no record of terrestrial glory, No sculptured shaft to tell the world his name,No marble pile, or golden-lettered story, To give to coming years his deathless fame.In all his gathered greatness now he slumbers, The sacred relic of a giant mind;Then breathe, my harp, thy saddest, holiest numbers Above the brow unrivalled light entwined.
With him the brightness of the day departed, And darkness broods above us like a spell—Blind justice stood aghast and broken-hearted When the great key-stone of her temple fell.His intellect, beneath her magic fingers, All other minds bowed humbly down before;His place is vacant, but his glory lingers, Fadeless and bright, till time shall be no more.
A mournful dirge through countless hearts is wailing, In solemn silence sable emblems wave;The cypress branches now are sadly trailing, Their tear-wet leaves about his honored grave.Rest then, in peace, thou pale and dreamless sleeper, Reposing in thy dark and silent bed,Till roused again by that Almighty keeper, Who ceaseless guards the slumbers of the dead.