My brother.
‘ Oh! can it, can it be brother,Life a fitful gleam is o'er,
And thou wilt tread with bounding glops,
They native hills no more!
Shall huntsman's horn and neighing steeds
Bid to the chase in vain,
And thy lov'd haunts, with social joy,
Ne'er give thy shout again!
I never can think of thee as gone,
Thine eyes love light as fled;
And thy great heart, so full of fire,
As passionless and dead.
For oh! God's mercy mark had been
So long above thy door,
We thought the dark death angel still
Would pass it as before.
But now his funeral shadows lie
Upon thy hearth so child,
We scarce with reverent heads can bow,
An say, oh! God, thy will.
For far from us thine eye's last light
On stranger faces chone,
And stranger ears caught from thy lips
Their last expiring tone
Ah me! those kindly friends knew not
The heavy shrouding woe
That busy death was weaving for
The hearts that lov'd thee so;
They knew not how our souls were knit,
What strong, enduring ties,
Were being riven there beneath
Their kind, unweeping eyes.
They did not know how ever, still,
As in our childhood's years,
Our lips had press'd the self same cup
Of merriment or tears;
Nor how thy watchful, shielding love,
Around my heart was thrown,
And thy unselfish soul had made
My sorrows all thine own
But thou art gone, and lov'd one's eyes
May pour out tears like rain,
And stricken hearts may bleed and break--
Thou will not come again:
No! never will the stirring drum,
The signal cannon's roar,
Nor any sound of martial life,
Disturb thy slumbers more.
We can but weep, yet proudly dash
Our yearning tears as do,
For none more fearlessly than thou
Didst breast the battle's tide;
And never since, our God scourged land
Has reek'd with tears and blood,
Has freedom's sagged altar claimed
A purer patriot's blood
’
