 | The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich |  |
210
VII
When we remember how they died—In dark ravine and on the mountain-side,
In leaguered fort and fire-encircled town,
Upon the gunboat's splintered deck,
And where the iron ships went down—
How their dear lives were spent,
In the crushed and reddened wreck,
By lone lagoons and streams,
In the weary hospital-tent,
In the cockpit's crowded hive—
How they languished and died
In the black stockades—it seems
Ignoble to be alive!
Tears will well to our eyes,
And the bitter doubt will rise—
But hush! for the strife is done,
Forgiven are wound and scar;
The fight was fought and won
Long since, on sea and shore,
And every scattered star
Set in the blue once more:
We are one as before,
With the blot from our scutcheon gone!
| The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich | |