Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

To the Memory of Harrison

UNSEAL the mournful sod,

Let sound your notes of wo—

A Christian soul has gone to God—

A Christian corse must to its burial go.

Simple shall be our rite:

The dust unto its dust,

The spirit to its native light,

To us, the blessed memory of the just.

It seems but yestermorn

That, by the gathering crowd,

Thou, as their chosen one, wert borne

Hither, with sound of joy, and welcome loud.

Call’d from thy stately West,

Thou camest, on mission proud;

It is fulfill’d: lie down to rest

With quiet heart in an untarnish’d shroud.

Thy message briefly said,

With word and look serene;

Thou bowest low thy hoary head,

And glidest, as a shadow, from the scene.

Our good old president!

On that triumphal day,

A milk-white steed beneath thee bent—

Paler is that which bears thee now away.

It is not well to mourn;

Man is but half a slave,

But half to sin and suffering born,

The tide of sorrow breaks upon the grave.

And when the warm spring sun

On thy green bed shall lie,

Methinks ’twill be a sweeter one

Than purple couch or regal canopy.

For, surely, thou art spared

The weight of weary days:

Sleepless anxieties, unshared,

And lonely wanderings in life’s thorniest ways.

Thou hast but plann’d our good,

Nor lived to see it fail;

Nor struggled with man’s evil mood,

Till thy soul fainted in its prison frail.

For thee the trump of war

Breathes vain defiance now;

We hear it, dimly, from afar,

But Peace has set her seal upon thy brow.

The chains thou wouldst have broken

Must bind us, if God will:

The words of truth thou wouldst have spoken

His voice shall speak, and every heart be still.

Upon the wreck of things

His signet is impress’d;

Turn we from vain imaginings,

For so He giveth His beloved rest.