Lines

This elegy was written by Ellen Murray, a co-founder of the Penn School on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. The poem was originally published in The New South on November 1, 1862. Francis Everett Barnard was born on April 8th, 1836, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, where he lived until the start of the Civil War. In spring of 1862, the Educational Commission for Freedman sent him, along with 29 others, from Boston down to South Carolina as a part of the Port Royal Experiment. On Edisto Island, he was a superintendent of 10 plantations. Barnard also managed around 600 newly freed people. There he passed out educational primers and attempted to start a day school. That summer, United States troops were pulled south from Edisto to help defend Hilton Head Island. The freed people who called Edisto home moved to St. Helena Island, and the superintendents followed. Barnard caught “bilious fever” in September, shortly after the move. He died on October 18th, 1862, at the age of 26.

On the death of F.E. Barnard, which occured on St. Helena Island, S.C., October 18th, 1862.

He slept ; the burning agony had passed,

The struggle and the pain;

The brow, relieved of anxious trouble, took

Its childhood’s calm again,Which deepened on and ever, till it grew

Into eternal peace ;Into a rest where painful dreams are o’er,

And restless tossings cease,

It seems as if that still face had not known

A suffering or a care,So legibly and so unalterably

The peace of God is there.

And we who look, forget the darksome way,

And almost ask to be

Sharers in such a perfectness of rest,

Such deep tranquility.

These Islands give him all they have to give;

A few bright autumn flowers,

To light the darkness of the coffin lid,

With thoughts of Springtime hours;

And more than these, heart tears from those who shared

His guardianship and love;

Such tears are counted blessings in yon world

All other praise above.

Most honored ! thou, first called from midst our band,

‘Tis said, no cause can be

On earth victorious till its martyrs die;

And so we think of thee,

As if thy death had consecrating power,

To bid the work proceed,

‘Till many laborers reap the harvest in,

Where thou has sown the seed.

Murray

Part of a series of articles titled
Poems by Ellen Murray.

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Half-Way

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The First Day of January, 1863

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