Home now is dark and desolate,
  And friends and schoolmates are in tears,
While strangers wonder at the fate,
  Which crushed her in her tender years.

Death never won a brighter prize,
  Nor friends a richer treasure lost,
Another star has left our skies,
  But heaven is richer at our cost.

We mourn but not in hopeless grief,
  In tears we kiss the chast’ning rod,
This sweet reflection brings relief,
  That all is good that comes from God.

Through and beyond this scene of gloom,
  Faith points the mourner’s downcast eyes,
While from the portals of the tomb,
  They see their lost loved one arise,

In blooming immortality;
  As she comes forth they hear her sing
O! grave, where is thy victory! 
  O! monster death where is thy sting!

WHAT IS MATTER?

Dedicated to his friend George Johnston.

How are you, George, my rhyming brother? 
We should be kinder to each other,
For we are kindred souls at least;
I don’t mean kindred, like the beast,—­
Mere blood and bones and flesh and matter,—­
But what this last is makes no matter. 
Philosophers have tried to teach it,
But all their learning cannot reach it;
’Tis matter still, “that’s what’s the matter”
With all their philosophic chatter,
And Latin, Greek, and Hebrew clatter,
Crucibles, retorts, and receivers,
Wedges, inclined planes, and levers,
Screws, blow pipes, electricity and light,
And fifty other notions, quite
Too much to either read or write. 
Just ask the wisest, What is matter? 
And notice how he will bespatter
The subject, in his vain endeavor,
With deep philosophy so clever,
To prove you what you knew before,
That matter’s matter, and no more. 
Well, this much then, we know at least,
That matter’s substance, and the beast
And bird and fish and creeping thing
That moves on foot, with fin or wing,
Is matter, just like you and me. 
Are they our kindred?  Must it be
That all the fools in all creation,
And knaves and thieves of every station
In life, can call me their relation? 
But that’s not all—­the horse I ride,
The ox I yoke, the dog I chide,
The flesh and fish and fowl we feed on
Are kindred, too; is that agreed on? 
Then kindred blood I quite disown,
Though it descended from a throne,
For it connects us down, also,
With everything that’s mean and low—­
Insects and reptiles, foul and clean,
And men a thousand times more mean. 
Let’s hear no more of noble blood,
For noble brains, or actions good,
Are only marks of true nobility.