one moment that brave, inspiring form is plainly visible to his whole country, rapt and calm, standing upon the log nearest the enemy’s battery, the mark of their sharpshooters, the admiration of their leaders, waving his sword, cheering his fellow-soldiers with his bugle voice of victory,—­young, brave, beautiful, for one moment erect and glowing in the wild whirl of battle, the next falling forward toward the foe, dead, but triumphant.

On the 19th of April he left the armory-door of the Seventh, with his hand upon a howitzer; on the 21st of June his body lay upon the same howitzer at the same door, wrapped in the flag for which he gladly died, as the symbol of human freedom.  And so, drawn by the hands of young men lately strangers to him, but of whose bravery and loyalty he had been the laureate, and who fitly mourned him who had honored them, with long, pealing dirges and muffled drums, he moved forward.

Yet such was the electric vitality of this friend of ours, that those of us who followed him could only think of him as approving the funeral pageant, not the object of it, but still the spectator and critic of every scene in which he was a part.  We did not think of him as dead.  We never shall.  In the moist, warm midsummer morning, he was alert, alive, immortal.

DIRGE

FOR ONE WHO FELL IN BATTLE.

  Room for a Soldier! lay him in the clover;
  He loved the fields, and they shall be his cover;
  Make his mound with hers who called him once her lover: 
  Where the rain may rain upon it,
  Where the sun may shine upon it,
  Where the lamb hath lain upon it,
  And the bee will dine upon it.

  Bear him to no dismal tomb under city churches;
  Take him to the fragrant fields, by the silver birches,
  Where the whippoorwill shall mourn, where the oriole perches: 
  Make his mound with sunshine on it,
  Where the bee will dine upon it,
  Where the lamb hath lain upon it,
  And the rain will rain upon it.

  Busy as the busy bee, his rest should be the clover;
  Gentle as the lamb was he, and the fern should be his cover;
  Fern and rosemary shall grow my soldier’s pillow over: 
  Where the rain may rain upon it,
  Where the sun may shine upon it,
  Where the lamb hath lain upon it,
  And the bee will dine upon it.

  Sunshine in his heart, the rain would come full often
  Out of those tender eyes which evermore did soften;
  He never could look cold, till we saw him in his coffin. 
  Make his mound with sunshine on it,
  Where the wind may sigh upon it,
  Where the moon may stream upon it,
  And Memory shall dream upon it.

  “Captain or Colonel,”—­whatever invocation
  Suit our hymn the best, no matter for thy station,—­
  On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation! 
  Long as the sun doth shine upon it
  Shall grow the goodly pine upon it,
  Long as the stars do gleam upon it
  Shall Memory come to dream upon it.