Life of Albert Parsons

CHAPTER V.

CAPT. BLACK'S EULOGY AT THE TOMB.

Capt. Black ascended the platform where the mourning women stood. He motioned for silence, and said:

"If you will all be as quiet as possible many of you may be able to hear what may be said, although to make one's self heard by all this multitude, who have come hither to-day, the common people, to pay their tribute of love and affection, would be an impossibility. Let us keep silence while we are here together.

"Many loved truth and lavished life's best oil
Amid the dust of books to find her,
Content at last for guerdon of their toil
With the cast mantle she has left behind her,
Many in sad faith sought her,
Many with crossed hands sighed for her,
But these, our brothers, fought for her,
At life's dear peril wrought for her,
So loved her that they died for her.
Tasting the ruptured sweetness
Of her divine completeness,
Their higher instincts knew,
Those love her best who to themselves are true,
And what they dared to dream of, dared to do.

They followed her and found her,
Where all may hope to find,
Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind,
But beautiful with danger's sweetness round her,
Where faith made whole with deed,
Breathes its awakening breath
Into the lifeless creed.
They saw her plumed and mailed,
With sweet, stem face unveiled,
And all repaying eyes looked proud on them in death.