The Chicago Martyrs/Epigraph

by Marcellus Eugene Cook

"Come not to my grave with your mournings,
With your lamentations and tears,
With your sad forebodings and fears!
When my lips are dumb,
Do not thus come.

Bring no long train of carriages,
No hearse crowned with waving plumes,
Which the gaunt glory of death illumes;
But with hands on my breast
Let me rest.

Insult not my dust with your pity,
Ye who're left on this desolate, shore
Still to suffer and lose and deplore.
'Tis I should, as I do,
Pity you.

For me no more are the hardships,
The bitterness, heartaches, and strife,
The sadness and sorrows of life,
But the glory divine—
This is mine.

Poor creatures! Afraid, of the darkness,
Who groan at the anguish to come.
How silent I go to my home!
Cease your sorrowful bell—
I am well."