Lines On The Death Of A Friend Poem by Samuel Alfred Beadle

Life is a mysterious thing.
It comes we know not whence,
And leaves us on a rapid wing
For an absence immense.


Just yester morn I had a friend,
Cheerful, brilliant and gay;
Today grim Death announced his end,
And bore him hence away.


Away into that dark region,
From kindred, friend and foe,
To join the numberless legion
Of men who went before.


Who, now, will cheer the broken hearted,
Or shield them from Death's wrath,
Since the strong, the brave, has departed,
And left a corpse in the path?


He was adorned with honor's star,
Had conquered all but fate;
Death's wing became his palace car
And bore him to heaven's gate.


Sleep on, dear friend; thou art not dead;
Much labor bids thee rest
Profoundly in thy narrow bed,
Of mother earth the guest.


The good, the great in eminence,
The famous, and the proud,
Shall join thee, shorn of this pretense,
Clothed only with a shroud.


Ambition, pride and hope may rise
Towering up Fame's dazzling peaks;
Yet they but find in glory's skies
The bier where valor sleeps.