The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1870-01-28
STANTON is BEAB.
BY J. J.. BATES.


! over the great dome OF the Capitol
! Hung, like greater dome, the murky sky,
] Lit by the waning stars; and, like pall
/ stirred by the wind, ;hin clouds vent drift
! ing by,
\ scattered, frozen host,
From the bleak Atlantic coat;
! And the wide city, chilly and forlorn,
In the wintry slumber lay,
Waiting the dawn Of day.
The day before the Merry Christmas morn.
Three by the clock amid the fog on high,
That, by itssouffI, seemed just beneath the
sky;
And drowsy chanticleer,
Walk by the ciang, proclaimed that day was
near:
When n sudden shudder went
Over the wide eontinent,-
A lightning fash OF fear
Along the dark and slender wires that are
The iron nerves OF the land,
Stretching on every hand,
From the Republics brain,
Far over mountain, river, lake and pl.in,
To where fair cities be
Beside the tribute sea,
Or by great rivers rolling to the main;
And through old oceans caves,
From shore 10 shore,
By buried wreck and deep sea
graves,
Where sleep the brave who voyage no
more,
To every land and cline beneath the sun
The fearful tidings run;
And these the awful words the message said:
aSstanton is deadT'
Was that groan
From LoOkOut's misty height,
Where gather the pale ghosts
OfWar's lost hosts,
Above the clouds to hold their review?
Or but the moan
Ofthe bleak wind OF night,
Where the funeral pines are thin and
few?
Was that an answering voice from Altoonas
pass?
Or where the icy wave
by many patriot grave,
BY vicI1sburg, Hudson, Richmond, Mobile
Bay,
Stretches thread of glass,
Or in the salt sea glimmer melts away9
And from an hundred fields where sleep the
brave,
Who to their country gave
Their last expiring breath with an eXulting
cry,
When through.the smoky rout
Broke the blue lines with their fierce char5-
ing shout,
And the triumphant yell Of Vic
tory =
Wasita groan from these grand fields that
said,
"stanton is dead?"
".
In half a million homes the idle saber hangs,
The unused musket, or the old canieen,
Revered memorials of what hath been;
Or, piously hid
Beneath the sacred lid
Ofthe old family Bible, papers of discharge;
Or sad certificates of death,
That in the furious charge,
SON, husband. father, spent his dying breath
or In the fever of the hospital
Gave 10 his country all.
And by all these
The happy children plant their Christmas
trees,
odorous and green as the memory of
the brave,
And hung with gifts. And now
Put black on every bOugh.
Saber and the muslKet drape
With bits of somber Grape;
Let love and pleasure look into the grave,
Where, in That narrow bed,
Stanton lies dead!
V.
No more that mighty hand,
Skilled 20 command,
May rule the passion OF an outraged land,
And from its purpose strong,
With patience large and long,
Forge thunderbolts TO smitc the eXulting
wrong.
He has fallen in his prime,
And the sweet bells change their time
From a merry Christmas chime
To a toll;
The muffled drums emit n mournful roll;
From the huge guns
A wailing thunder runs;
And the tall ships
Shroud their black batteries in n gray
eclipse,
Save some mean soul,
That here and there, with secret, evil
VIII,
Loves treason still,
The Nation rains its tears upon his
bier
The last great dead of this our funeral
year,
Wherein have died
So many great beside.
But of them all, as in the holy past
Our good Lord said,
"The first shall be the last"
Stanton is dead!