Frank is dead! The mournful message
Comes gushing from the ocean's roar.
Frank is dead! His mortal passage
Has ended on the heavenly shore.
In earthly agony he died
To join his Saviour crucified.
Frank is dead! Time's bitter trials
Drove him a wanderer from home,
To meet life's lot, share its denials,
Or gain a rest where cares ne'er come.
His frail form sinking, his grand spirit
Careered to realms the blest inherit.
Frank is dead! In life's young morning,
When heavenly promise lit his day,
His smitten spirit, homeward turning,
Forsook its tenement of clay.
No more to battle here with sin;
No more to suffer mid earth's din.
Frank is dead! By fever stricken,
How long he suffered, and how deep!
With none to feel his hot blood quicken,
No loved one near to calm his sleep.
No mother's presence him to gladden:
Naught, naught to cheer--all, all to sadden.
Frank is dead! His pangs are over.
His gentle spirit hence has flown.
Strangers, with earth, his body cover,
Strangers attend his dying moan.
On stranger forms his eyes last close,
To meet A FRIEND in their repose.
Frank is dead! Aye! weep, fond mourner!
The grand, the beautiful is lost.
Too pure for earth, the meek sojourner,
On passion's billows tempest-tossed,
Has found a source of sweeter bliss
In realms that sunder wide from this.
Frank is dead! Yes, dead to sorrow,
Dead to sadness, dead to pain.
Dead! Dead to all save the tomorrow
Whose light eternally shall reign.
He's dead to young ambition's vow
And the big thought that stamped his brow.
Frank is dead! Dead to the labors
He'd staked his life to triumph in:--
To win his friends, his dying neighbors,
And fellows all from death and sin.
With steady faith he toiled to fit
Christ's armor on and honor it.
Frank is dead! Omniscient pleasure
Has closed his bright career too soon
To realize how rich a treasure
The ranks had entered ere high noon.
His brilliant promise, dashed in youth,
One less is left to fight for truth.
Frank is dead! Yes, dead to mortals.
No more we'll see his noble brow
Or flashing eye; but in the portals
Above, by faith I see him now
With gladden'd step and fluttering heart,
Marching to share the better part.
Frank is dead!! No, never, never!
Not dead but only gone before.
Back,--back! Thou tear-drop, rising ever;
Nor Heaven's fiat now deplore.
Wail not the sorrows earth can lend
To banish spirits that ascend.
And fare thee well, my noble brother!
'Tis hard to think that thou art not;
To realize that never other
Footstep like thine shall share my cot,
And think of all thy heart endured,
By sore besetments often tried.
But,--Heaven be thanked,--all now is cured
And thou, fair boy, art glorified.