The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-02-22
IN MEMORIAM.
BY BURTON T. DOYLE.

The following is the poem written for the
memorial services of the National Rifles and
rected at the National Theatre by the author
last Sunday night:
The divine constitution of the world is good
And perfect in stupendous plan,
When natures labyrinths are truly understood
BY those who worship when they scan
Creations wonders and their useful grandeurs
here
In that sublime economy
Which harmonizes all in each revolving sphere
And forms one vast autonomy.
And the moral constitution of man was good
And has by faith an anchor still,
Where God in Heaven crowns deathless broth
erhood
OF hearth-born souls that do His wills
But all that were ordained to be 80 just and
good
Have not their missions here achieved
As perfectly as God designed and wlled they
should
When Natures systems were conceived
We come on earth, we meet, make friends, and
spend our days
or gladness, sorrow, joy, and pain;
Our span of life is brief-the grave forever stays
So near the rocking cradles gain
That entrance to and exit fl ON existence's stage
On earth is but t1eeting breath;
For though we love the joys in which we here
engage,
We soon succumb and yield to dea tn.
But whether all of life and all of death are here
A birth and knel the two extremes:
Or whether there is life beyond this earthly
sphere
In other hopes, and joys. and themes,
No finite human mind unaided has discerned,
Nor bold deduction made reply;
And no departed soul has ever yet returned
To teach or warn us we die
We know not whatitis-we cannot fathom death,
Nor solve the secret of the grave
The problem is profound. We hope that dying
breath
Conveys the soul to Him who gave
That vital spirit-gem to animate us here
And warm the heart of human breast,
Until He calls it hence to some eternal sphere
To die in pain or live in rest
The weary human soul pursues its journey
through
The desert of this dreary world;
For sunshine, rain and shadows bound the pass.
ing view
Which life has to all men unfurled
Since breath of it was breathed in human mould
of clay
And man became living thing;
The path we tread, the life we live, while here
we stay,
Will shades and shadows to us bring
Till solemn retrbution comes to us at last
With curse or crown for every head:
Our future must forever answer for our past
Our spirits live when we are dead.
So we must justly fight our battles here below,
If we would win prize above
Where Gods immortals dwell; for He has willed
And tries to win us there with love.
And still when God DEGREES that deathless wizard,
Time,
His monarch OF the scythe and glass,
Shall summons any soul before His Court
Sublime
To serve the sentence He may pass,
That marshal serves the writ and takes no plea
in bar,
But seizes with impartial grasp
A babe, child, a youth. a man. a king, or czar
And holds him in a breakless clasp
Until His jailer, Death, unlocks the entrance
gate
To searchless realms beyond the known
And leads the dying frame, the body, there to
wait
Until that gate Is open thrown:
Then Dissolution bears the captive spirit through
The threshold to that other state,
Where Justice reigns supreme and unbelievers
Their scofhngs when, alas, too late!
Where hypocrites, by sin and worldly can't entail
An adverse fate. severely just;
But interceding faith and righteousness avail
or Him in whom they put their trust,
Forgiving grace, condoning love, omnisciente eye
To lead and guard, to shield and save
Their deathless spirits when their earthly bodies
die
And turn to ashes in the grave.
Where speculations fade and skeptics do not
prate
Against the hope which there consoles
And worldly vice with Christian faith does not
debate
The future of departed souls;
But Charon halls the cursed and Gabriel greets
the blessed
To take them where the record leads
The wailing to Abaddons realm, deprived of rest,
The happy where their Saviour pleads.
And when the order came from that Almighty
Crown.
The Righteous Judge of Heavens Court,
That eight of us should lay their earthly burdens
down
And make to Him their last report,
His marshal summoned first our Stone, and then
our Page,
And next our Spencer, then our Moore,
Then Burkart Chatfee, Evans, Blois next left
that stage
Where comrades now their loss deplore.