by W. H. Rhodes
[Decoration]
XIX.
_THE LAST OF HIS RACE._
No further can fate tempt or try me, With guerdon of pleasure or pain; Ere the noon of my life has sped by me, The last of my race I remain. To that home so long left I might journey; But they for whose greeting I yearn, Are launched on that shadowy ocean Whence voyagers never return.
My life is a blank in creation, My fortunes no kindred may share; No brother to cheer desolation, No sister to soften by prayer; No father to gladden my triumphs, No mother my sins to atone; No children to lean on in dying-- I must finish my journey alone!
In that hall, where their feet tripp'd before me, How lone would now echo my tread! While each fading portrait threw o'er me The chill, stony smile of the dead. One sad thought bewilders my slumbers, From eve till the coming of dawn: I cry out in visions, "_Where are they_?" And echo responds, "_They are gone_!"
But fain, ere the life-fount grows colder, I'd wend to that lone, distant place, That row of green hillocks, where moulder The rest of my early doom'd race. There slumber the true and the manly, There slumber the spotless and fair; And when my last journey is ended, My place of repose be it there!
[Decoration]