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.