The Unknown Dead
The rain is plashing on my sill,
But all the winds of Heaven are still;
And so it falls with that dull sound
Which thrills us in the church-yard ground,
When the first spadeful drops like lead
Upon the coffin of the dead.
Beyond my streaming window-pane,
I cannot see the neighboring vane,
Yet from its old familiar tower
The bell comes, muffled, through the shower.
What strange and unsuspected link
Of feeling touched, has made me think --
While with a vacant soul and eye
I watch that gray and stony sky --
Of nameless graves on battle-plains
Washed by a single winter's rains,
Where, some beneath Virginian hills,
And some by green Atlantic rills,
Some by the waters of the West,
A myriad unknown heroes rest.
Ah! not the chiefs, who, dying, see
Their flags in front of victory,
Or, at their life-blood's noble cost
Pay for a battle nobly lost,
Claim from their monumental beds
The bitterest tears a nation sheds.
Beneath yon lonely mound -- the spot
By all save some fond few forgot --
Lie the true martyrs of the fight
Which strikes for freedom and for right.
Of them, their patriot zeal and pride,
The lofty faith that with them died,
No grateful page shall farther tell
Than that so many bravely fell;
And we can only dimly guess
What worlds of all this world's distress,
What utter woe, despair, and dearth,
Their fate has brought to many a hearth.
Just such a sky as this should weep
Above them, always, where they sleep;
Yet, haply, at this very hour,
Their graves are like a lover's bower;
And Nature's self, with eyes unwet,
Oblivious of the crimson debt
To which she owes her April grace,
Laughs gayly o'er their burial-place.
poem by Henry Timrod
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The Two Armies
Two armies stand enrolled beneath
The banner with the starry wreath;
One, facing battle, blight and blast,
Through twice a hundred fields has passed;
Its deeds against a ruffian foe,
Stream, valley, hill, and mountain know,
Till every wind that sweeps the land
Goes, glory laden, from the strand.
The other, with a narrower scope,
Yet led by not less grand a hope,
Hath won, perhaps, as proud a place,
And wears its fame with meeker grace.
Wives march beneath its glittering sign,
Fond mothers swell the lovely line,
And many a sweetheart hides her blush
In the young patriot's generous flush.
No breeze of battle ever fanned
The colors of that tender band;
Its office is beside the bed,
Where throbs some sick or wounded head.
It does not court the soldier's tomb,
But plies the needle and the loom;
And, by a thousand peaceful deeds,
Supplies a struggling nation's needs.
Nor is that army's gentle might
Unfelt amid the deadly fight;
It nerves the son's, the husband's hand,
It points the lover's fearless brand;
It thrills the languid, warms the cold,
Gives even new courage to the bold;
And sometimes lifts the veriest clod
To its own lofty trust in God.
When Heaven shall blow the trump of peace,
And bid this weary warfare cease,
Their several missions nobly done,
The triumph grasped, and freedom won,
Both armies, from their toils at rest,
Alike may claim the victor's crest,
But each shall see its dearest prize
Gleam softly from the other's eyes.
poem by Henry Timrod
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Loyalty to the Flag
In the love of home and country and the flag of Uncle Sam,
Can the loyalty be doubted of a dusky son of Ham?
Wheresoever duty calls him, as a freedman or a slave,
The response is ever hearty when 'Old Glory' he would save.
'Twas the war of Revolution, when a Negro's blood was first,
To be shed for independence, when a yoke the land had cursed;
Crispus Attucks died in Boston, on State street he paid the debt,
Liberty his blood has planted and the tree is growing yet.
Ask the spirit of Pitcairn how he came to meet his death?
Where and who it was that brought him down to breathe the dying breath?
'Twas the Negro Salem's bullet at the charge of Bunker's Hill,
Bringing to the whites their freedom but to Negroes naught but ill.
In the battle of New Orleans, eighteen fourteen was the year,
When the Negro fought with valor till the victory was clear;
Jackson paid this glowing tribute—may the spirit never lag—
'None more strong and none more useful, none more loyal to the flag.'
O, how brave the Negro soldiers when the Civil war was fought!
Shall they fight such noble battles in the nation's cause for naught?
Hark! the battle cry of Charleston! at Fort Wagner is the place!
At Port Hudson and Fort Pillow how the rebel guns they face!
Fifty-fourth of Massachusetts—may such regiments be praised—
By its valor at Fort Wagner, North and South became amazed!
Hall began as color-bearer but was killed on duty grand,
To the spot went William Carney and the colors took in hand.
Wounded many times was Carney, shot in head, in arm and thigh,
On one knee he fell and crawling kept the colors flying high,
Blood upon the banner streaming while his words the action crowned;
'Boys I've kept aloft 'Old Glory' and it never touched the ground!'
Colonel Stafford was disabled, Dwight his men to battle led,
With great feeling at New Orleans, Stafford to the sergeant said,
'Guard, protect defend these colors,' 'Yes,' he answered, 'though I die
I will bring them back in honor or to God report the why.'
All the world has heard the story of the Cuban war with Spain,
Ah! the sound of Negro valor falls upon the ear again,
At Elkaney and San Juan how they helped to win the day,
Near the town of Santiago, held the enemy at bay!
Side by side with other soldiers being in complexion white,
Negroes died to take San Juan in the thickest of the fight,
Thus they gained the worthy plaudit from the loyal, brave and true;
'Negroes on the field of battle, dignify the nation's blue.'
Shall the prejudice existing in the country now, increase,
While the Negro's patriotism merits rest at home and peace?
Nay, the hydra-headed monster in the end will surely die,
We expect the right to triumph over evil by and by.
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Rain Keeps Fallin
I remember the night so well.
The rain was fallin but I just couldnt tell,
If it was you that was callin to my love-sick brain.
But the rain kept fallin on my window pane.
Out of the night the thunder rang in my ear.
I cant fight the feelin, lord, that brings forth my fears.
I wish it was over, lord, please stop the rain.
The rain thats fallin on my window pane.
The rain thats fallin on my window pane.
Every night the rains on time, I can feel it in this heart of mine.
But I dont know what to do.
Well, I guess I could go back home, cause you know back home is where I belong.
But it just aint home without you.
And I dont know what to do, baby.
Well, I guess Im a looser but it just dont seem fair.
I lost all my life so tell me, why should I care?
The night that you left me is the night that it came.
And the rains still fallin on my window pane.
The rain keeps fallin on my window pane.
The rain keeps fallin on my window pane.
You know the rain.
The rain keeps fallin on my window pane.
I said the rain.
The rain keeps fallin on my window pane.
You know the rain.
The rain keeps fallin on my window pane.
I said the rain.
The rain keeps fallin on my window pane.
You know the rain ...
The rain keeps fallin on my window pane.
... keeps right on fallin.
The rain keeps fallin on my window pane.
I said, the rain keeps fallin ...
song performed by by Grand Funk Railroad
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Give Us Rain
'Give us Rain, Rain,' said the bean and the pea,
'Not so much Sun,
Not so much Sun.'
But the Sun smiles bravely and encouragingly,
And no rain falls and no waters run.
'Give us Peace, Peace,' said the peoples oppressed,
'Not so many Flags,
Not so many Flags.'
But the Flags fly and the Drums beat, denying rest,
And the children starve, they shiver in rags.
poem by Robert Graves
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The Ruined Chapel
By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruined chapel round,
Buttressed with a grassy mound;
Where Day and Night and Day go by
And bring no touch of human sound.
Washing of the lonely seas,
Shaking of the guardian trees,
Piping of the salted breeze;
Day and Night and Day go by
To the endless tune of these.
Or when, as winds and waters keep
A hush more dead than any sleep,
Still morns to stiller evenings creep,
And Day and Night and Day go by;
Here the silence is most deep.
The empty ruins, lapsed again
Into Nature's wide domain,
Sow themselves with seed and grain
As Day and Night and Day go by;
And hoard June's sun and April's rain.
Here fresh funeral tears were shed;
Now the graves are also dead;
And suckers from the ash-tree spread,
While Day and Night and Day go by;
And stars move calmly overhead.
poem by William Allingham
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The unfinished battle
`1The unfinished battle
The strive is not over, if it is not over
It has no ending, not a definite end.
Alas! There is no finish to a war, war-
is not won by victory.this battle of a hero
the good fight of a great protagonist one-
in which no winner emerged.alas! the unaccomplished-
runners, those with women like heart, they are dead.
The great protagonist is not dying, not in this war.
The brave ones never died, they die thousands of times.
the war is a cruel thing sometimes a haven. the peasants,
don’t want it, while an inevitable to the warriors.those who
are lucky with their faith are here in their threshold down,
they are safer indeed in their stony sleep but, the reminants-
in this unfinished battle of ours make this war our war when-
no alternative we got alas! the battle is unfinished.
It has no ending, war is not won by victory.
poem by Ipaye Olawole Peter
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The Last Post.
The last post sounds and echoes round.
The neat and well kept burial ground.
Head stones in rows beneath the sky
to mark where our dead heroes lie.
Standing as if still on parade.
Each headstone looking newly made.
It is one way we show respect.
No more no less than I expect
Head stones don’t only signify
that battle weary soldiers die
They also serve who wait for men
who will not see their home again.
The last post makes us realise
That war destroys their families.
Each time I hear the last post sound
I’m filled with sadness so profound.
Tears spring unbidden from my eyes,
they always take me by surprise.
I’m not ashamed to let them flow
Because I’m old enough to know.
That real men aren’t afraid to cry
Despite the ancient common lie.
That men don’t let emotions show
and should not let their tear drops flow.
When I hear the last post sound
I can recall the battle ground.
Where so many comrades still lie
in foreign fields beneath the sky.
The last post serves to honour all
brave soldiers who sadly fall.
Not only friends but enemies.
Death selects quite randomly.
Young widows weep and mothers cry.
They have the right and so do I.
Tuesday,31 August 2010
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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The Maiden's Sorrow
Seven long years has the desert rain
Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;
Seven long years of sorrow and pain
I have thought of thy burial-place.
Thought of thy fate in the distant west,
Dying with none that loved thee near;
They who flung the earth on thy breast
Turned from the spot williout a tear.
There, I think, on that lonely grave,
Violets spring in the soft May shower;
There, in the summer breezes, wave
Crimson phlox and moccasin flower.
There the turtles alight, and there
Feeds with her fawn the timid doe;
There, when the winter woods are bare,
Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.
Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away;
All my task upon earth is done;
My poor father, old and gray,
Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone.
In the dreams of my lonely bed,
Ever thy form before me seems;
All night long I talk with the dead,
All day long I think of my dreams.
This deep wound that bleeds and aches,
This long pain, a sleepless pain--
When the Father my spirit takes,
I shall feel it no more again.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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Memorial Day
"Dulce et decorum est"
The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.
The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky.
Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
They plunged for Freedom and the Right.
May we, their grateful children, learn
Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
At last the accolade of God.
In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace . . . Who brought a sword.
poem by Joyce Kilmer
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Confederate Memorial Day
The marching armies of the past
Along our Southern plains,
Are sleeping now in quiet rest
Beneath the Southern rains.
The bugle call is now in vain
To rouse them from their bed;
To arms they'll never march again-
They are sleeping with the dead.
No more will Shiloh's plains be stained
With blood our heroes shed,
Nor Chancellorsville resound again
To our noble warriors' tread.
For them no more shall reveille
Sound at the break of dawn,
But may their sleep peaceful be
Till God's great judgment morn.
We bow our heads in solemn prayer
For those who wore the gray,
And clasp again their unseen hands
On our Memorial Day.
poem by Anonymous Americas
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Earth
A midnight black with clouds is in the sky;
I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight
Of its vast brooding shadow. All in vain
Turns the tired eye in search of form; no star
Pierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze,
From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth,
Tinges the flowering summits of the grass.
No sound of life is heard, no village hum,
Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path,
Nor rush of wing, while, on the breast of Earth,
I lie and listen to her mighty voice:
A voice of many tones--sent up from streams
That wander through the gloom, from woods unseen,
Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air,
From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day,
And hollows of the great invisible hills,
And sands that edge the ocean, stretching far
Into the night--a melancholy sound!
O Earth! dost thou too sorrow for the past
Like man thy offspring? Do I hear thee mourn
Thy childhood's unreturning hours, thy springs
Gone with their genial airs and melodies,
The gentle generations of thy flowers,
And thy majestic groves of olden time,
Perished with all their dwellers? Dost thou wail
For that fair age of which the poets tell,
Ere the rude winds grew keen with frost, or fire
Fell with the rains, or spouted from the hills,
To blast thy greenness, while the virgin night
Was guiltless and salubrious as the day?
Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die--
For living things that trod thy paths awhile,
The love of thee and heaven--and now they sleep
Mixed with the shapeless dust on which thy herds
Trample and graze? I too must grieve with thee,
O'er loved ones lost. Their graves are far away
Upon thy mountains; yet, while I recline
Alone, in darkness, on thy naked soil,
The mighty nourisher and burial-place
Of man, I feel that I embrace their dust.
Ha! how the murmur deepens! I perceive
And tremble at its dreadful import. Earth
Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong,
And heaven is listening. The forgotten graves
Of the heart-broken utter forth their plaint.
The dust of her who loved and was betrayed,
And him who died neglected in his age;
The sepulchres of those who for mankind
Laboured, and earned the recompense of scorn;
Ashes of martyrs for the truth, and bones
Of those who, in the strife for liberty,
Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs,
Their names to infamy, all find a voice.
The nook in which the captive, overtoiled,
Lay down to rest at last, and that which holds
Childhood's sweet blossoms, crushed by cruel hands,
Send up a plaintive sound. From battle-fields,
Where heroes madly drave and dashed their hosts
Against each other, rises up a noise,
As if the armed multitudes of dead
Stirred in their heavy slumber. Mournful tones
Come from the green abysses of the sea--
story of the crimes the guilty sought
To hide beneath its waves. The glens, the groves,
Paths in the thicket, pools of running brook,
And banks and depths of lake, and streets and lanes
Of cities, now that living sounds are hushed,
Murmur of guilty force and treachery.
Here, where I rest, the vales of Italy
Are round me, populous from early time,
And field of the tremendous warfare waged
'Twixt good and evil. Who, alas, shall dare
Interpret to man's ear the mingled voice
That comes from her old dungeons yawning now
To the black air, her amphitheatres,
Where the dew gathers on the mouldering stones,
And fanes of banished gods, and open tombs,
And roofless palaces, and streets and hearths
Of cities dug from their volcanic graves?
I hear a sound of many languages,
The utterance of nations now no more,
Driven out by mightier, as the days of heaven
Chase one another from the sky. The blood
Of freemen shed by freemen, till strange lords
Came in the hour of weakness, and made fast
The yoke that yet is worn, cries out to Heaven.
What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle Earth
From all its painful memories of guilt?
The whelming flood, or the renewing fire,
Or the slow change of time? that so, at last,
The horrid tale of perjury and strife,
Murder and spoil, which men call history,
May seem a fable, like the inventions told
By poets of the gods of Greece. O thou,
Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep,
Among the sources of thy glorious streams,
My native Land of Groves! a newer page
In the great record of the world is thine;
Shall it be fairer? Fear, and friendly hope,
And envy, watch the issue, while the lines,
By which thou shalt be judged, are written down.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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The Two Graves
'Tis a bleak wild hill,--but green and bright
In the summer warmth and the mid-day light;
There's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wren,
And the dash of the brook from the alder glen;
There's the sound of a bell from the scattered flock,
And the shade of the beech lies cool on the rock,
And fresh from the west is the free wind's breath,--
There is nothing here that speaks of death.
Far yonder, where orchards and gardens lie,
And dwellings cluster, 'tis there men die.
They are born, they die, and are buried near,
Where the populous grave-yard lightens the bier;
For strict and close are the ties that bind
In death the children of human-kind;
Yea, stricter and closer than those of life,--
'Tis a neighbourhood that knows no strife.
They are noiselessly gathered--friend and foe--
To the still and dark assemblies below:
Without a frown or a smile they meet,
Each pale and calm in his winding-sheet;
In that sullen home of peace and gloom,
Crowded, like guests in a banquet-room.
Yet there are graves in this lonely spot,
Two humble graves,--but I meet them not.
I have seen them,--eighteen years are past,
Since I found their place in the brambles last,--
The place where, fifty winters ago,
An aged man in his locks of snow,
And an aged matron, withered with years,
Were solemnly laid!--but not with tears.
For none, who sat by the light of their hearth,
Beheld their coffins covered with earth;
Their kindred were far, and their children dead,
When the funeral prayer was coldly said.
Two low green hillocks, two small gray stones,
Rose over the place that held their bones;
But the grassy hillocks are levelled again,
And the keenest eye might search in vain,
'Mong briers, and ferns, and paths of sheep,
For the spot where the aged couple sleep.
Yet well might they lay, beneath the soil
Of this lonely spot, that man of toil,
And trench the strong hard mould with the spade,
Where never before a grave was made;
For he hewed the dark old woods away,
And gave the virgin fields to the day;
And the gourd and the bean, beside his door,
Bloomed where their flowers ne'er opened before;
And the maize stood up; and the bearded rye
Bent low in the breath of an unknown sky.
'Tis said that when life is ended here,
The spirit is borne to a distant sphere;
That it visits its earthly home no more,
Nor looks on the haunts it loved before.
But why should the bodiless soul be sent
Far off, to a long, long banishment?
Talk not of the light and the living green!
It will pine for the dear familiar scene;
It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold
The rock and the stream it knew of old.
'Tis a cruel creed, believe it not!
Death to the good is a milder lot.
They are here,--they are here,--that harmless pair,
In the yellow sunshine and flowing air,
In the light cloud-shadows that slowly pass,
In the sounds that rise from the murmuring grass.
They sit where their humble cottage stood,
They walk by the waving edge of the wood,
And list to the long-accustomed flow
Of the brook that wets the rocks below.
Patient, and peaceful, and passionless,
As seasons on seasons swiftly press,
They watch, and wait, and linger around,
Till the day when their bodies shall leave the ground.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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Forgotten Dead, I Salute You
Dawn has flashed up the startled skies,
Night has gone out beneath the hill
Many sweet times; before our eyes
Dawn makes and unmakes about us still
The magic that we call the rose.
The gentle history of the rain
Has been unfolded, traced and lost
By the sharp finger-tips of frost;
Birds in the hawthorn build again;
The hare makes soft her secret house;
The wind at tourney comes and goes,
Spurring the green, unharnessed boughs;
The moon has waxed fierce and waned dim:
He knew the beauty of all those
Last year, and who remembers him?
Love sometimes walks the waters still,
Laughter throws back her radiant head;
Utterly beauty is not gone,
And wonder is not wholly dead.
The starry, mortal world rolls on;
Between sweet sounds and silences,
With new, strange wines her beakers brim:
He lost his heritage with these
Last year, and who remembers him?
None remember him: he lies
In earth of some strange-sounding place,
Nameless beneath the nameless skies,
The wind his only chant, the rain
The only tears upon his face;
Far and forgotten utterly
By living man. Yet such as he
Have made it possible and sure
For other lives to have, to be;
For men to sleep content, secure.
Lip touches lip and eyes meet eyes
Because his heart beats not again:
His rotting, fruitless body lies
That sons may grow from other men.
He gave, as Christ, the life he hadÑ
The only life desired or known;
The great, sad sacrifice was made
For strangers; this forgotten dead
Went out into the night alone.
There was his body broken for you,
There was his blood divinely shed
That in the earth lie lost and dim.
Eat, drink, and often as you do,
For whom he died, remember him.
poem by Muriel Stuart
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Trees And The Menace Of Night
Trees and the menace of night;
Then a long, lonely, leaden mere
Backed by a desolate fell,
As by a spectral battlement; and then,
Low-brooding, interpenetrating all,
A vast, gray, listless, inexpressive sky,
So beggared, so incredibly bereft
Of starlight and the song of racing worlds,
It might have bellied down upon the Void
Where as in terror Light was beginning to be.
Hist! In the trees fulfilled of night
(Night and the wretchedness of the sky)
Is it the hurry of the rain?
Or the noise of a drive of the Dead,
Streaming before the irresistible Will
Through the strange dusk of this, the Debateable Land
Between their place and ours?
Like the forgetfulness
Of the work-a-day world made visible,
A mist falls from the melancholy sky.
A messenger from some lost and loving soul,
Hopeless, far wandered, dazed
Here in the provinces of life,
A great white moth fades miserably past.
Thro' the trees in the strange dead night,
Under the vast dead sky,
Forgetting and forgot, a drift of Dead
Sets to the mystic mere, the phantom fell,
And the unimagined vastitudes beyond.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Old St. David's
"What an image of peace and rest." — Longfellow
In Radnor Valley, from the world apart,
The little Church stands peaceful as of old,
Guarding her memories, yet half untold,
Deep in the silent places of her heart.
Life comes, and passes by her, as it wills;
But musing on loved things evanishèd,
She keeps the generations of the dead,—
Herself unchanged amid her beauteous hills:
Unchanged, though full of change her days have been,
Since builded here, ere Washington was born,
She seemed the home of exiled hearts forlorn—
The open portal to hope's fair demesne.
Close as the ivy that adorns her walls,
So grateful thoughts have twined themselves and clung
About this lowly sanctuary, sprung
From that necessity which ever calls
The soul of man to seek for something higher,—
Anhungered for a more celestial bread
Than that wherewith his earthly life is fed,—
And faith was kindled here, and patriot fire!
Yea; from this sacred pile, in days gone by,
Brave men, to duty nobly dedicate,
Went forth to strive against despotic fate—
For liberty content to live—or die.
Some came not back; but some returned, victorious,—
Needing nor badge nor ribbon on the breast,—
To find here, by the little Church, their rest:
Heroes and martyrs lowly—yet how glorious!
Healed of all hurt, emparadised afar
Though they abide, yet to our reverent sight,
About their graves there lingers still a light
Which is not as the light of moon or star;
And very peaceful after stormy days,
And sturdy as the antique oaks remain,
Which sentineled the burial of Wayne,—
Illustrious beyond the need of praise,—
Old Radnor Church bestows her benison,
Calling to us who from the past yet borrow,
To love the right, and living for the morrow,
Fulfill the hopes of heroes that are gone.
So, through whate'er of change the future brings,
Shall she our memories and faiths defend,—
A temple of the highest to the end,
Immortal through the love of deathless things!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Lofty Tango In Londn 'snowy Days' - Wael Moreicheh
TO
KINGS OF GENOCIDE in any place of world
AND
'what`s do Hamlet`s uncle for this glory'....
......like out of ATLANTIC STAGE
OR
an ATLANTIC WALLS BESIDE Apollo
CAN and can`t fight
three poems about lovers
about 'sleeping flowers in mid - night of April
LORD OF RUMOURS and realism
SAYS.......true
DIVINE COMEDY OVER COME
'BLIND - FOLD FOR MURDER ED IN THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY
what`s...
LAST PARADISE LOST LUST? ?
GIVE MY KIND LOVE TO
STRANGEST LOVE OUT HEAVEN OR
FLOWERS DEW
ARE OUR GROVE DEJECTED?
THE WEST AVENUE
not FOR NOTHING IN THE STATION OF Los Angelenos
SO
'CHICAGO POEMS'
BESIDE TRAFALGAR BATTLE
AND....lost world
THE BED OF THE OCEAN
AND
THE ARTS OF LOVE
WAEL MOREICHEH
poem by Wael Moreicheh
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The Banner Of The Covenanters
I.
HERE, where the rain-drops may not fall, the sunshine doth not play,
Where the unfelt and distant breeze in whispers dies away;
Here, where the stranger paces slow along the silent halls,
Why mutely art thou hanging thus against the massive walls?
Thou, that hast seen blood shed for thee--that midst the battle-tide
Hast faintly lit the soldier's eye with triumph ere he died;
Bright banner, which hath witness'd oft the struggles of the free,
Emblem of proud and holy hope, is this a place for thee?
II.
Wake! wave aloft, thou Banner! let every snowy fold
Float on our wild, unconquer'd hills, as in the days of old:
Hang out, and give again to Death a glory and a charm,
Where Heaven's pure dew may freshen thee, and Heaven's pure sunshine warm.
Wake, wave aloft!
I hear the silk low rustling on the breeze,
Which whistles through the lofty fir, and bends the birchen trees;
I hear the tread of warriors arm'd to conquer or to die;
Their bed or bier the heathery hill, their canopy the sky.
III.
What, what is life or death to them? they only feel and know
Freedom is to be struggled for, with an unworthy foe--
Their homes--their hearths--the all for which their fathers, too, have fought,
And liberty to breathe the prayers their cradled lips were taught.
On, on they rush--like mounitain streams resistlessly they sweep--
On! those who live are heroes now--and martyrs those who sleep!
While still the snow-white Banner waves above the field of strife,
With a proud triumph, as it were a thing of soul and life.
IV.
They stand--they bleed--they fall! they make one brief and breathless pause,
And gaze with fading eyes upon the standard of their cause;--
Again they brave the strife of death, again each weary limb
Faintly obeys the warrior soul, tho' earth's best hopes grow dim;--
The mountain-rills are red with blood, the pure and quiet sky
Rings with the shouts of those who win, the groans of those who die;
Taken--re-taken--raised again, but soil'd with clay and gore,
Heavily, on the wild free breeze, that Banner floats once more.
V.
I hear the wail of women now: the dreadful day is done:
God's creatures wait to strive and slay until to-morrow's sun:
I hear the heavy breathing of the weary ones who sleep,
The death-sob and the dying word, 'the voice of them that weep;'
The half-choked grief of those who, while they stifle back their breath,
Scarce know if what they watch be hush'd in slumber or in death;
While mournfully, as if it knew and felt for their despair,
The moon-lit Banner flaps and falls upon the midnight air.
VI.
Morning! the glad and glorious light! the waking of God's earth,
Which rouses men to stan with gore the soil that gave them birth.
In the still sunshine sleeps the hill, the stream, the distant town;
In the still sunshine--clogg'd and stiff--the battle-flag hangs down.
Peace is in Heaven, and Heaven's good gifts, but war is amongst men--
Red blood is pouring on the hill, wild shouts are in the glen;
'T is past--they sink, they bleed, they fly--that faint, enfeebled host,
Right is not might--the Banner-flag, the victory, are lost!
VII.
Heaven's dew hath drunk the crimson drops which on the heather lay,
The rills that were so red with gore, go sparkling on their way;
The limbs that fought, the hearts that swell'd, are crumbled into dust,
The souls which strove are gone to meet the spirits of the just;
But that frail silken flag, for which, and under which, they fought,
(And which e'en now retains its power upon the soul of thought,)
Survives--a tatter'd, senseless thing--to meet the curious eye,
And wake a momentary dream of hopes and days gone by.
VIII.
A momentary dream! oh! not for one poor transient hour,
Not for a brief and hurried day that flag exerts its power;
Full flashing on our dormant souls the firm conviction comes,
That what our fathers did for theirs, we could for our homes.
We, too, could brave the giant arm that seeks to chain each word,
And rule what form of prayer alone shall by our God be heard:
We, too, in triumph or defeat, could drain our heart's best veins,
While the good old cause of Liberty for Church and State remains!
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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Ode for Memorial Day
DONE are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky overarches,
Shelt'ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country's derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O'er the expanse of our mighty dominions,
Sweeping away to the uttermost parts,
Peace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,
Bringeth her message of joy to our hearts.
Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,
What did it cost for our fathers to gain!
Bought at the price of the heart's dearest treasure,
Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;
Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,
Slaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;
Born where the heroes and martyrs were dying,
Torn by the fury of bullet and shell.
Ah, but the day is past: silent the rattle,
And the confusion that followed the fight.
Peace to the heroes who died in the battle,
Martyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!
Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,
Out of the dust and the dimness of death,
Burst into blossoms of glory eternal
Flowers that sweeten the world with their breath.
Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion
Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;
Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean
Leaps into beauty and fullness of life.
So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,
And with the flag flashing high in the sun,
Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels
Which their unfaltering valor has won!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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A Hero's Grave
O'er our evening fire the smoke is like a pall,
And funeral banners hang about the arches of the hall,
In the gable end I see a catafalque aloof,
And night is drawn up like a curtain to the girders of the roof.
Thou knowest why we silent sit, and why our eyes are dim,
Sing us such proud sorrow as we may hear for him.
Reach me the old harp that hangs between the flags he won,
I will sing what once I heard beside the grave of such a son.
My son, my son,
A father's eyes are looking on thy grave,
Dry eyes that look on this green mound and see
The low weed blossom and the long grass wave,
Without a single tear to them or thee,
My son, my son.
Why should I weep? The grass is grass, the weeds
Are weeds. The emmet hath done thus ere now.
I tear a leaf; the green blood that it bleeds
Is cold. What have I here? Where, where, art thou,
My son, my son?
On which tall trembler shall the old man lean?
Which chill leaf shall lap o'er him when he lies
On that bed where in visions I have seen
Thy filial love? or, when thy father dies,
Tissue a fingered thorn to close his childless eyes?
Aye, where art thou? Men tell me of a fame
Walking the wondering nations; and they say,
When thro' the shouting people thy great name
Goes like a chief upon a battle-day,
They shake the heavens with glory. Well-away!
As some poor hound that thro' thronged street and square
Pursues his loved lost lord, and fond and fast
Seeks what he feels to be but feels not where,
Tracks the dear feet to some closed door at last,
And lies him down and lornest looks doth cast,
So I, thro' all the long tumultuous days,
Tracing thy footstep on the human sands,
O'er the signed deserts and the vocal ways
Pursue thee, faithful, thro' the echoing lands,
Wearing a wandering staff with trembling hands:
Thro' echoing lands that ring with victory,
And answer for the living with the dead,
And give me marble when I ask for bread,
And give me glory when I ask for thee-
It was not glory I nursed on my knee.
And now, one stride behind thee, and too late,
Yet true to all that reason cannot kill,
I stand before the inexorable gate
And see thy latest footstep on the sill,
And know thou canst not come, but watch and wait thee still.
'Old man!'-Ah, darest thou? yet thy look is kind,
Didst thou, too, love him? 'Thou grey-headed sire,
Seest thou this path which from that grave doth wind
Far thro' those western uplands higher and higher,
Till, like a thread, it burns in the great fire
'Of sunset? The wild sea and desert meet
Eastward by yon unnavigable strand,
Then wherefore hath the flow of human feet
Left this dry runnel of memorial sand
Meandering thro' the summer of the land?
'See where the long immeasurable snake,
Between dim hall and hamlet, tower and shed,
Mountain and mountain, precipice and lake,
Lies forth unfinished to this final head,
This green dead mound of the unfading dead!'
Do they then come to weep thee? Do they kiss
Thy relics? Art thou then as wholly gone
As some old buried saint? My son, my son,
Ah, could I mourn thee so! Such tears were bliss!
'Old man, they do not mourn who weep at graves like this.'
They do not mourn? What! hath the insolent foe
Found out my child's last bed? Who, who, are they
That come and go about him? I cry, 'Who?'
I am his father-I;-I cry 'Who?' 'Aye,
Gray trembler, I will tell thee who are they.
'The slave who, having grown up strong and stark
To the set season, feels at length he wears
Bonds that will break, and thro' the slavish dark
Shines with the light of liberated years,
And still in chains doth weep a freeman's tears.
'The patriot, while the unebbed force that hurled
His tyrant throbs within his bursting veins,
And, on the ruins of a hundred reigns,
That ancient heaven of brass, so long unfurled,
Falls with a crash of fame that fills the world,
And thro' the clangor lo the unwonted strains
Of peace, and, in the new sweet heavens upcurled,
The sudden incense of a thousand plains.
'Youth whom some mighty flash from heaven hath turned
In his dark highway, and who runs forth, shod
With flame, into the wilderness untrod,
And as he runs his heart of flint is burned,
And in that glass he sees the face of God,
And falls upon his knees-and morn is all abroad.
'Age who hath heard amid his cloistered ground
The cheer of youth, and steps from echoing aisles,
And at a sight the great blood with a bound
Melts his brow's winter, which the free sun smiles
To jewels, and he stands a young man crowned
With glittering years among a young world shouting round.
'Girls that do blush and tremble with delight
On the St. John's eve of their maidenhood;
When the unsummered woman in her blood
Glows through the Parian maid, and at the sight
The flushing virgin weeps and feels herself too bright.
'He who first feels the world-old destiny,
The shaft of gold that strikes the poet still,
And slowly in its victim melts away,
Who knows his wounds will heal but when they kill,
And drop by vital drop doth bleed his golden ill.
'All whom the everpassing mysteries
Have rapt above the region of our race,
And, blinded by the glory and the grace,
Break from the ecstatic sphere-as he who dies
In darkness, and in heaven's own light doth rise,
Dazed with the untried glory of the place
Looks up and sees some well-remembered face,
And thro' the invulnerable angels flies
To that dear human breast and hides his dazzled eyes.
'All who, like the sun-ripened seed that springs
And bourgeons in the sun, do hold profound
An antenatal stature, which the round
Of the dull continent flesh hath cribbed and wound
Into this kernelled man; but having found
Such soil as grew them, burst in blossomings
Not native here, or, from the hallowed ground,
Tower their slow height, and spread, like sheltering wings,
Those boughs wherein the bird of omen sings
High as the palms of heaven, while to the sound
Lo kingdoms jocund in the sacred bound
Till the world's summer fills her moon, and brings
The final fruit which is the feast and fate of kings.
'And darest thou mourn? Thy bones are left behind,
But where art thou, Anchises? Dost thou see
Him who once bare the slow paternity,
Foot-burnt o'er stony Troy? So, thou, reclined
Goest thro' the falling years. Here, here where we
Two stand, lies deep the flesh thou hast so pined
To clasp, and shalt clasp never. Verily,
Love and the worm are often of one mind!
God save them from election! Pity thee?
True he lifts not thy load, but he hath signed
And at his beck a nation rose up free;
Thy wounds his living love may never bind,
But at the dead man's touch posterity
Is healed. To thee, thou poor, and halt, and blind,
He is a staff no more: but times to be
Lean on his monumental memory
As the moon on a mountain. Thou shalt find
A silent home, a cheerless hearth: but he
Shall be a fire which the enkindling wind,
Blowing for ever from eternity,
Fans till its universal blaze hath shined
The yule of thankful ages. Pity thee?
A son is lost to thine infirmity;
Poor fool, what then? A son thou hast resigned
To give a father to the virtues of mankind.'
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Thomas Joseph Byrnes
God gave him gifts: nor gave in vain
The great heart and the master-brain
To dream, to battle, to attain,
To storm the height.
The power that all men strive to gain
Was his by right.
O saddest Spring in all the land!
O Mystery, hard to understand—
When, at the stern unknown command,
With icy breath,
Fate placed within his fearless hand
The gift of Death!
Calm be his sleep who lived to dare.
Go, say a patriot slumbers there
Whose brows were never bent to wear
His loftiest fame,
Yet wrote on Queensland’s page a rare—
A fadeless name!
He fought his fight: he won his goal.
His name is on the battle-scroll;
And, whilst beyond our weak control
The tears we shed
Well deep within a Nation’s soul,
He is not dead.
poem by George Essex Evans
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