The Dying Fugitive

Slowly o'er his darkened features / Stole the warning shades of death, / And we knew the mystic angel / Waited for his parting breath.

He had started for his freedom, / And his heart beat firm and high; / But before he won the guerdon / Came the message -- he must die.

He must die when just before him / Lay the longed-for precious prize, / And the hopes that lit him onward / Faded out before his eyes.

For awhile a fearful madness / Rested on his weary brain, / And he thought the hateful tyrant / Had rebound his galling chain.

Then he cried in bitter anguish, / Take me where that good man dwells, / For a name to freedom precious / Lingered 'mid life's shattered cells.

But as sunshine gently stealing / On the storm-cloud's gloomy track, / Through the tempests of his bosom / Came the light of reason back.

And, without a sigh or murnur / For the friends he'd left behind, / Calmly yielded he his spirit / To the Father of mankind.

Thankful that so near to freedom / He with eager feet had trod, / Ere his ransom'd spirit rested / On the bosom of his God.