[In Memoriam.]
Frank M. Cruikshank, Died 1862.
Frank is dead! The mournful message
Comes gushing from the ocean’s roar.
Frank is dead! His mortal passage
Has ended on the heavenly shore.
In earthly agony he died
To join his Saviour crucified.
Frank is dead! Time’s bitter trials
Drove him a wanderer from home,
To meet life’s lot, share its denials,
Or gain a rest where cares ne’er come.
His frail form sinking, his grand spirit
Careered to realms the blest inherit.
Frank is dead! In life’s young morning,
When heavenly promise lit his day,
His smitten spirit, homeward turning,
Forsook its tenement of clay.
No more to battle here with sin;
No more to suffer mid earth’s din.
Frank is dead! By fever stricken,
How long he suffered, and how deep!
With none to feel his hot blood quicken,
No loved one near to calm his sleep.
No mother’s presence him to gladden:
Naught, naught to cheer—all, all to sadden.
Frank is dead! His pangs are over.
His gentle spirit hence has flown.
Strangers, with earth, his body cover,
Strangers attend his dying moan.
On stranger forms his eyes last close,
To meet A FRIEND in their repose.
Frank is dead! Aye! weep, fond mourner!
The grand, the beautiful is lost.
Too pure for earth, the meek sojourner,
On passion’s billows tempest-tossed,
Has found a source of sweeter bliss
In realms that sunder wide from this.
Frank is dead! Yes, dead to sorrow,
Dead to sadness, dead to pain.
Dead! Dead to all save the tomorrow
Whose light eternally shall reign.
He’s dead to young ambition’s vow
And the big thought that stamped his brow.
Frank is dead! Dead to the labors
He’d staked his life to triumph in:—
To win his friends, his dying neighbors,
And fellows all from death and sin.
With steady faith he toiled to fit
Christ’s armor on and honor it.