I charge you by the memories of our youth,
By Yorktown's field and Montezuma's clime,
Hold our dead sacred--let them quietly rest
In your unnumbered vales, where God thought best!
Your vines and flowers learned long since to forgive,
And o'er their graves a 'broidered mantle weave;
Be you as kind as they are, and the word
Shall reach the Northland with each summer bird,
And thoughts as sweet as summer shall awake
Responsive to your kindness, and shall make
Our peace the peace of brothers once again,
And banish utterly the days of pain.
And ye, O Northmen! be ye not outdone
In generous thought and deed.
We all do need forgiveness, every one;
And they that give shall find it in their need. Spare of your flowers to deck the stranger's grave, Who died for a lost cause:
A soul more daring, resolute, and brave
Ne'er won a world's applause!
(A brave man's hatred pauses at the tomb.) For him some Southern home was robed in gloom, Some wife or mother looked with longing eyes Through the sad days and nights with tears and sighs,
Hope slowly hardening into gaunt Despair.
Then let your foeman's grave remembrance share ; Pity a higher charm to Valor lends,
And in the realms of Sorrow all are friends.
Yes, bring fresh flowers and strew the soldier's
Whether he proudly lies
Beneath our Northern skies,
Or where the Southern palms their branches wave !
Let the bells toll and wild war-music swell,
And for one day the thought of all the past-
Of all those memories vast--
Come back and haunt us with its mighty spell! Bring flowers, then, once again,
And strew with fragrant rain
Of lilacs, and of roses white and red,
The dwellings of our dead.
ODE FOR DECORATION-DAY.
THEY sleep so calm and stately,
Each in his graveyard bed,
It scarcely seems that lately
They trod the fields blood-red,
With fearless tread.
They marched and never halted,
They scaled the parapet,
The triple lines assaulted,
And paid without regret
The final debt.
The debt of slow accruing
A guilty nation made,
The debt of evil-doing,
Of justice long delayed,-
'Twas this they paid.
On fields where Strife held riot,
And Slaughter fed his hounds,
Where came no sense of quiet,
Nor any gentle sounds,
They made their rounds.
They wrought without repining,
Till, weary watches o'er,
They passed the bounds confining
Our green, familiar shore,
And now they sleep so stately,
Each in his graveyard bed,
So calmly and sedately
They rest, that once I said:
"These men are dead.
They know not what sweet duty
We come each year to pay,
Nor heed the blooms of beauty,
The garland gifts of May,
Strewn here to-day.
"The night-time and the day-time,
The rise and set of sun,
The winter and the May-time,
To them whose work is done,
Are all as one.'
Then o'er mine eyes there floated
A vision of the Land
Where their brave souls, promoted
To Heaven's own armies, stand
At God's right hand.
From out the mighty distance
I seemed to see them gaze
Back on their old existence,
Back on the battle-blaze
Of war's dread days.
"The flowers shall fade and perish,"
In larger faith spake I,
"But these dear names we cherish Are written in the sky,
[This poem is founded upon an incident that occurred at Columbus, Miss., on Memorial-Day, 1867, when flowers were strewn upon the graves of Confederate and Federal soldiers alike.]
By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the one, the Blue;
Under the other, the Gray.
These, in the robings of glory,
Those, in the gloom of defeat;
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.
From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray
So, with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.
So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.
Sadly, but not with upbraiding
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won ;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.
No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead.
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.
FRANCIS MILES FINCH.
LISTS all white and blue in the skies;
And the people hurried amain
To the Tournament under the ladies' eyes
Where jousted Heart and Brain.
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