John Jay Chapman

Augustus Peabody Gardner

I SEE—within my spirit—mystic walls, And slender windows casting hallowed light Along dim aisles where many a shadow falls On text and trophy, effigy and tomb; And here each youthful hero and old knight Sleeps on his marble couch, while overhead The tattered banners shed their bloom Of glory o'er the dead. Here, raised in brass or graved in stone, And dated with the passing year, Are names—companions I have known, Whose hands I clasped but yesterday, Whose voices ring within my ear: And friends of earlier epochs far away, Whose spirits answer to my call Of names familiar as my own, Written upon this chapel wall. How strange to find them here! So soon, so early sanctified, They lie within the nation's heart, Calm, safe, those sacred tombs beside Of earlier saints who kept the faith And waged the battle of their life As 'twere a part of that celestial strife That makes a gain of death. Ah, we ourselves have slept, And we, who but half knew them, find them here, Where into light they stept, Upon the signal that the Angel gave— Like him who now upon his passing bier Moves into History. O blessed War, That sends a blast of brightness from the grave To show the souls of mortals as they are!