OCTOBER 14 OBITUARY FOR LT. COL. GEORGE P. JOUETT

A Wreath Woven in Memory of George P. Jouett, of the Fifteenth Kentucky.

Sweet is the memory of the departed Man, ever aspiring seeking higher and more perfect enjoyment, lives not in the present.  He looks now forward in hope, now backward with regret, and, pining, mourns the loss of those who made this life most desirable.  The endearments of life are found not in ourselves, but in the society we enjoy and the love we have for others.  The tie that binds us here, though made of mortal clay, a fragile bond, is yet a golden chain, and from it many a link has dropped even in this short period of our existence.  One by one they leave us, but in their departure they sunder not the tie, for the heart in affection will yearn for those whose forms the clay-cold clod has entombed.  The grass-green grave, and snowy slab tell the passing stranger they have lived and died.  So, too, they speak to us.  The mind delights to wander backward and view, in thought, the faces of those with whom we were wont to associate.  We dwell upon these thoughts and soon are lost in reverie, and as we wake it seems that we again have been holding communion with the dear departed; that we have seen their faces.  The heart sighs for the departed, and does it find no response?  The belief that the spirits of departed friends become guardian angels to watch over those they love but leave, is most pleasing and delightful, and by it the broad river of death dwindles to but a little rill, which with a step we span.  Death divides to pain, unchains to bind.  It separates the bodies but unites the souls.  If there is one on earth we love, when from Heaven we look back to view the scenes of earth, it cannot be but that we shall that that one the more.  What, oh, what so much as this can lighten the sting of their departure?

The cheek of our friend is chilled.  The beating heart moves slow, fainter and yet more faint it tolls its graveyard march.  It flutters, flutters, stops, 'tis death!  Not dreadful; not, the pleasing, peaceful, happy death.  To that clay form we cling 'till the 'morrow's sun has passed, and then we give to earth what she so kindly gave.  But the spirit, where is that?  On the battlefield; there, 'twas said, it took its flight.  The spot is sacred, though clotted o'er with blood.  The conch is hallowed, though it were rude earth.  The curtains, veiling the blue heavens, as they did, seem to shut out the scene from angel eyes.

How beautiful it will be to meditate at even tide, to cull again the flowers which strew the highway of memory!  How sweet, as gray twilight steals over earth, and star by star shoots gently forth, to journey backward in our life, and view familiar forms and faces through the dim vista of the past!  In life, how beautiful, how noble was our brother's form!  Fain would you to your bosom clasp that form again.  Each heart has its own Necropolis, filled with the memory of the loved and unforgotten.  Dear was he to us when hand clasped hand, when "eye spoke love to eye," and heart responded to heart.  We mourn ye, dear ones, not as lost, but gone before!  Adieu! and may we meet grim Death, when he comes borne upon the wings of time, as fearlessly, as calmly as you.  I here lay this wreath, as a simply tribute, upon the grave of George P. Jouett!

                                        MINNIE MYRTLE

Louisville Democrat, October 14, 1862