Said “Peacefully let him be one with the dead!”
At a palace we tarried, and there one lay
On his last sad couch, at the close of day;
He struggled hard, but Death’s face said “No!
Duty is mine, wheresoever I go:
Peasant or king, it is all the same,
Mine must thou be—I have here thy name!”
We hovered around where a Christian sire
Lay waiting to join the eternal choir;
Peaceful and calm was his holy repose;