Who gathered around their dear poet's loved grave.
With trumpet and drum, but in silence, they came—
Their paths were illumed by their torches' mild flame,
Whose soft lambent streams by love's glory were lit;
And where fairy knights and bright elves used to flit
Across the wan world when the lights quivered dim,
These watched at the grave, and were mourning for him.
That the spirit of those funeral services was neither local nor ephemeral is proved by the following poem, which, by a strange coincidence, came in a round-about way to my desk in the Record-Herald office from their author in Texarkana, Texas, the very day I transcribed the above lines from Dr. Gunsaulus's "Songs of Night and Morning" into the manuscript of this book:
EUGENE FIELD
1.