ON THE DEATH OF CAPT. M. M. DOX, LATE OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY.
Friend of my youth! whom thoughts of other years,
When life was young, and hope was new, endears—
Thy solemn change, where all that live must go,
Strikes on my heart a salutary woe.
Oft have I known thee in the social hour,
When mirth and conversation owned thy power,
Or, with one heart, we lingered to explore
Geneva’s woodlands, or Ontario’s shore;
Oft books or men employed the leisure thought,
Who wrote most happy, who most gallant fought,
Or cogitating plans, left all undone,
How fame is earned, or fortune may be won
To read, to muse, to meditate, to sigh,
We thought of all, but how with faith to die.
Long severed by the varied course of time
By lands remote, by fortune, care, and clime,
What once, in youth, no terrors could impart,
Fate brings with sad sensations to my heart;
Hope’s brittle thread is severed at a breath,
And all that meets the gazing eye is death.
Arms drew thee forth, when late thy country saw
Right raised on arrogance, power stampt as law;
But me, erewhile, a wayward fortune drew,
Long streams to traverse—boundless plains to view;
While now on arts, and now on letters cast,
Hope bore me lightsome on the western blast,
I but return to honor, with the brave,
A friend’s—a patriot’s—and a soldier’s grave.