We shall meet, but we shall miss
him,
There
will be one vacant chair:
We shall linger to caress him,
When
we breathe our evening prayer.
When a year ago we gathered,
Joy
was in his mild blue eye;
But a golden cord is severed,
And
our hopes in ruin lie.
At our fireside, sad and lonely,
Often
will the bosom swell
At remembrance of the story, —
How
our noble Willie fell;
How he strove to bear our banner
Through
the thickest of the fight,
And upheld our country's honor
With
the strength of manhood's might.
True, they tell us, wreaths of glory
Evermore
will deck his brow;
But this soothes the anguish, only,
Sweeping
o'er our heart-strings now.
Sleep to-day, O early fallen!
In
thy green and narrow bed:
Dirges from the pine and cypress
Mingle
with the tears we shed.
We shall meet, but we shall miss
him,
There
will be one vacant chair
We shall linger to caress him,
When
we breathe our evening prayer.
— Henry Stevenson Washburn, Worcester, Massachusetts, November 16, 1861. Set to music by George
F. Root.
SOURCE: Henry Stevenson Washburn , The Vacant Chair and Other Poems, p. 13-14
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