The Songs that Quinte Sang/In Memoriam, G. P. Y.
In Memoriam, G. P. Y.
Just three-score years and ten he spent with us,
The span of Life allotted unto man,
And then before old age had dimmed his eye
Or clouded his great intellect and brain,
God’s voice spake out to him and called him hence.
And he obeyed the call, nor shrank when Death,
That grim and ghastly King of Terrors, laid
His hand upon his noble heart, and stilled
Its kindly throbs. No coward sign he made,
But undismayed and fearless, he went forth
Into the great, mysterious unknown,
Whose entrance is the Grave, whose password—Death.
And now to him all secrets are revealed;
Those mysteries, unfathomed and profound,
Those problems which we ever try to solve
With all the might of our poor human ken—
Problems which baffled even his great brain—
Are all unfolded now unto his sight
Like printed pages of an open book.
Ah! If he only could come back again
For one brief space of time, and speak to us
Of those great mysteries, profound and vast,
Which are no longer mysteries to him.
But that can never be, such thoughts are vain,
For our earth-blinded eyes must e’en as his
Be touched and opened by the hand of Death,
Ere we can hope to read the truths sublime
Inscribed within the pages of that book.
And we who know how quenchless was his thirst
For Truth and Knowledge, though we mourn our loss,
Rejoice to picture him in that far land,
Drinking deep draughts of knowledge from the springs
Of glorious, eternal, living Truth.
And knowing this we would not wish thee back,
Teacher and guide, philosopher and sage,
Who lived as God ordained mankind should live,
Who died as God ordained mankind should die,
Whose life was blameless and whose end was peace.