of these hallowed hills, as a holy, eternal pledge of fidelity to the life, freedom, and unity of this cherished Republic.

OVER THEIR GRAVES

BY HENRY JEROME STOCKARD

Over their graves rang once the bugle's call,
The searching shrapnel and the crashing ball;
The shriek, the shock of battle, and the neigh
Of horse; the cries of anguish and dismay;
And the loud cannon's thunders that appall.

Now through the years the brown pine-needles fall,
The vines run riot by the old stone wall,

By hedge, by meadow streamlet, far away,
Over their graves.

We love our dead where'er so held in thrall.
Than they no Greek more bravely died, nor Gaul-
A love that's deathless!—but they look to-day
With no reproaches on us when we say,

"Come, let us clasp your hands, we're brothers all, Over their graves!"

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

ANONYMOUS

Each thin hand resting on a grave,
Her lips apart in prayer,

A mother knelt, and left her tears
Upon the violets there.

O'er many a rood of vale and lawn,
Of hill and forest gloom,
The reaper Death had reveled in
His fearful harvest home.
The last unquiet summer shone
Upon a fruitless fray;

From yonder forest charged the blue-
Down yonder slope the gray.

The hush of death was on the scene,
And sunset o'er the dead,
In that oppressive stillness,
A pall of glory spread.

I know not, dare not question how
I met the ghastly glare

Of each upturned and stirless face
That shrunk and whitened there.
I knew my noble boys had stood

Through all that withering day,
I knew that Willie wore the blue,
That Harry wore the gray.

I thought of Willie's clear blue eye,
His wavy hair of gold,

That clustered on a fearless brow

Of purest Saxon mold;

Of Harry, with his raven locks

And eagle glance of pride;

Of how they clasped each other's hand And left their mother's side;

How hand in hand they bore my prayers

And blessings on the way

A noble heart beneath the blue,
Another 'neath the gray.

The dead, with white and folded hands,
That hushed our village homes,
I've seen laid calmly, tenderly,
Within their darkened rooms;
But there I saw distorted limbs,
And many an eye aglare,
In the soft purple twilight of
The thunder-smitten air.
Along the slope and on the sward
In ghastly ranks they lay,
And there was blood upon the blue
And blood upon the gray.

I looked and saw his blood, and his;
A swift and vivid dream

Of blended years flashed o'er me, when,
Like some cold shadow, came
A blindness of the eye and brain-

The same that seizes one

When men are smitten suddenly

Who overstare the sun;

And while, blurred with the sudden stroke

That swept my soul, I lay,
They buried Willie in his blue,
And Harry in his gray.

The shadows fall upon their graves;
They fall upon my heart;

And through the twilight of this soul
Like dews the tears will start;
The starlight comes so silently
And lingers where they rest;
So hope's revealing starlight sinks
And shines within my breast.
They ask not there, where yonder heaven
Smiles with eternal day,

Why Willie wore the loyal blue,

Why Harry wore the gray.

A PATRIOTIC MESSAGE FOR MEMORIAL DAY

BY GENERAL JAMES LONGSTREET, LIEUTENANT-GENERAL

IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY DURING THE CIVIL WAR

The broad, deep Americanism which pulses through the great heart of the Republic to-day will grow broader and deeper with the passing years. I am thankful that I have lived to see this noble result of the war springing into vast and virile life. The passions of the titanic struggle will finally enter upon the

sleep of oblivion, and only its splendid accomplishments for the cause of human freedom and a united nation, stronger and richer in patriotism because of the great strife, will be remembered.

REUNITED

BY F. L. STANTON

I've been thinkin' of it over, an' it 'pears to me today

The war's the biggest blessin' that has ever come our

way;

Course, thar'll be some fightin', an' a few more graves'll be

Whar the daisies in the medder look their purtiest at

me,

For that's to be expected; but-the thing that makes me feel

That the war's a heavenly blessin' is the wounds that it'll heal!

The old wounds that's been ranklin' sence the day that Gin'rul Lee

Said we'd rest an' think it over by that old-time appletree!

I see the boys that fit us in the Union coats of blue On the same groun',-hale an' hearty, an' a-shakin' howdy-do!