by Addie Lucia Ballou

Published in Driftwood, The Hicks-Judd Company, 1899

Read by the author at the funeral

Calm, peaceful at last, like the breast of the river,
When torrent and tempest and tumult are past.
When the cataract's thunder is silent forever,
When storm-spent and placid and quiet at last,
When the rock-fretted rapids no longer are sighted,
Reposeful, it reaches its furthermost shore,
And the lamplights of evening in Starland are lighted,
And the travail and toil of the day are no more,—

She quietly sleeps, who was tossed on life's ocean,
In whose wild waves of impulse her life-bark was borne
O'er the red fields of carnage and cannons' commotion
Through the winds of adversity shattered and torn.
With a patriot's fire on her soul's altar burning,
And a loyal heart's love that her faults should atone,
With a soul full of tenderness spent—unreturning—
Neglected, forsaken, and dying alone.

Oh, fling not reproach at the last, when death's finger
And seal on her lips and her heart-throbs are set,
On one who so loved with the children to linger,
Whose innocent prattles she could not forget.
Ah me! it were better each comrade and woman
Should ask of himself—were his own weakness known,
He could say to his conscience:— "I am better than human,
That he, being sinless, should cast the first stone”?

O loyal heart, faithful heart, heroine, soldier;
Breveted by Lincoln, by Garfield installed,
With the comrades in arms who went shoulder to shoulder,
Imprisoned and captive, but never appalled.
For country and freedom, and the stars of "Old Glory,"
Oh, let it drape over her, silent and dead,
For what more befitting her life's hallowed story
Than forever its folds should unfurl o'er her head.

And we should regret, if regrets were availing.
That we gave not the living these tributes of ours,
And crowned her with laurels, whatever her failing.
And strewed o'er her pathway love's beautiful flowers;
And perhaps—who shall say that her lingering spirit
Speeds happier on in its star-fretted way
That at last, and in death, we remembered her merit,
And bless, as we honor, her record to-day?

Where softly she sleeps will the grave grasses quiver,
When the west wind sweeps in from far over the sea;
In her dream she will float on that mystical river
Where the palm trees of Aiden droop low o'er the lea,
And her bark will cast anchor among the pale islands,
And the hands of the angels are beckoning near,
And the morning light dawns o'er the crest of the highlands,
And an escort in armor to meet her appear.

And there on the banks of the river they cluster,
At the call of the bugle they form into line,
And a glorified army death only could muster,
And a national memory only enshrine.
She has gone! and among them on history's pages,
When ours are forgotten, our children will tell
Of her deeds. And her name will live on through the ages.
Pass on, O freed spirit, pass on, and farewell.