MEMORIAL DAY FOR OUR DEAD BY CLINTON SCOLLARD Flowers for our dead! The delicate wild roses, faintly red; As fragrant as their fadeless memory! Praise for our dead! For those that followed and for those that led, Beneath the Cuban or Philippine skies! While waves our brave, bright banner overhead, Praise for our dead! Love for our dead! O hearts that droop and mourn, be comforted! The darksome path through the abyss of pain, The final hour of travail not in vain! 3 For freedom's morning smile Broadens across the seas from isle to isle. By reverent lips let this fond word be said: AN ODE FOR DECORATION DAY BY HENRY PETERSON Bring flowers, to strew again With fragrant purple rain Of lilacs, and of roses white and red, The fortunes of the land, The pride and power and safety of the North! It seems but yesterday The long and proud array But yesterday when e'en the solid rock Shook as with earthquake shock As North and South, like two huge icebergs, ground Against each other with convulsive bound, And the whole world stood still To view the mighty war, And hear the thunderous roar, While sheeted lightnings wrapped each plain and hill. Alas! how few came back From battle and from wrack! Alas! how many lie Beneath a Southern sky, Who never heard the fearful fight was done, And all they fought for, won! Sweeter, I think, their sleep, More peaceful and more deep, Could they but know their wounds were not in vain; Could they but hear the grand triumphal strain, That they the thrilling joy of triumph feel,. We mourn for all, but each doth think of one Who came not back or, coming, sank and died; "He fell 'fore Richmond in the seven long days. When battle raged from morn till blood-dewed eve, And lies there," one pale widowed mourner says, "My boy fell at Fair Oaks," another sighs; 66 And mine at Gettysburg," his neighbor cries, And that great name each sad-eyed listener thrills. I think of one who vanished when the press Of battle surged along the Wilderness, And mourned the North upon her thousand hills. O gallant brothers of the generous South! In your unnumbered vales, where God thought best! Shall reach the Northland with each summer bird, And ye, O Northmen! be ye not outdone 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; For pity a high charm to Valor lends, And in the realms of Sorrow all are friends. Yes, bring fresh flowers, and strew the soldier's grave, 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- Come back and haunt us with its mighty spell! And strew with fragrant rain Of lilacs, and of roses white and red, COVER THEM OVER WITH BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS Decoration Day Hymn ANONYMOUS Cover them over with beautiful flow'rs, Sleeping the years of their manhood away. |