Hear! The herald of him now speaks
who lays beneath; in love he lived;
in serving his sons and his wife he sought
the good of the Goodmans God gave to his charge.
He lived till death to donate his life
to those who depended on Dad; till death
his truth to his troth did not waver; I tell
the glory that's Goodman, which this man did grab;
his ancestor's honor, which from ancient times
gave glory to the great name of Goodman; his life
gave tribute to that tow'ring troth; it told
of service to something beyond the salt seas,
beyond e'en the lands beyond that; beyond
the reach of the realm of the world. So rich
this man thought he was; for his wife was a woman
and his sons were men, and they meant to maintain
the name that he, too, helped to make. Not noise
nor battle nor winds nor battering beasts
could sever his service to father and son.
But where now this father? To where has he fared?
His warmth has departed, his life has now passed.
For even such men must be mortal; e'en men
with his goodness must go 'fore the glory of God
to be judged. Once joyful, cheerful and jolly,
now clothed in dirt; now cold and dead,
the sons who so pleased him now sobbing their pleas
to the God who made Goodmans to give him to life.
So hear! I, his son and his herald, bid hark
to the words which my weeping addressed past the world
for the father who fought and lay dead, that the Father
whom he and I share might have mercy on him,
whose love for his family was like the great Father's
Whose Son on the mountain was murdered by men
so his brothers might live unto life. O Lord!
have mercy on him in your all-hallowed halls
and remember my tears, and my troth which I took
from the sinner who stands at your seat. Your own Son
once wept for Lazarus, and his weeping, Lord,
brought mercy on man; so my mother now weeps;
so also his sons are now seeking your sentence
for mercy on Goodman, whose goodness you made.
So hear! Now his herald beseeches, bids hark
to his plea to the people who hear now this poem
which he writes for the father who wrought such good works.
Please pray for my father for freedom from purging;
pay service to the tears of his son in his sorrow
and beg the Lord God to the glory of life
that this man be admitted. And may it e'er be;
over ages, eternity, eons, all time,
to the sounding of the last age of men. Soothly.
