O not with arms reversed,
And the slow beating of the muffled drum,
And funeral marches, bring our hero home
These stormy woods where his young heart was nursed
Ring with a trumpet burst
Of jubilant music, as if he who lies
With shrouded face, and lips all white and dumb
Were a crowned conqueror entering paradise,--
This is his welcome home!

Along the reedy marge of the dim lake,
I hear the gathering horsemen of the North,
The cavalry of night and tempest wake,--
Blowing keen bugles as they issue forth,
To guard his homeward march in frost and cold,
A thousand spearmen bold!

And the deep-bosomed woods,
With their dishevelled locks all wildly spread,
Stretch ghostly arms to clasp the immortal dead,
Back to their solitudes
While through their rocking branches overhead,
And all their shuddering pulses underground
shiver runs, as if a voice had said--
And every farthest leaf had felt the wound--
He comes--but he is dead!

The dainty-fingered May