Later Lays and Lyrics :: :: University of Virginia Library

Later Lays and Lyrics

Hosmer, William H. C. (1814-1877)

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SONNET DEDICATORY.

QUEEN OF THE BLOSSOMS.

WAR LYRICS

TOURNAMENT OF DEATH; OR, READ'S LAST RIDE.

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WAR LYRICS

ANNUS MIRABILIS.

I.

Time's belfry, with another knell,
Is in the wintry tempest shaking,
And Ocean, with an angry swell,
Is on the beach in thunder breaking.
Another pilgrim reached the goal
When waned the last hour of December,
And left behind a blood-red scroll
That man will evermore remember.

II.

To Europe for a mighty theme
No more in thought the bard will wander,
But here, awaking from his dream,
Upon the fate of empire ponder.
Of greatest moment are events
Within one year's brief limits crowded;
Potomac's shore all white with tents,
Heroic martyrs early shrouded.

III.

Fields with fraternal gore are red
Where Peace, of late, the grain was reaping;
From rugged Maine to Hilton Head
Are widowed ones, and Orphans weeping.

The hardy Anglo-Saxon race
Now, as of old, are slow to anger,
But when concession is disgrace
They love the battle's shock and clangor.

IV.

Departed Year! the book of Time
Is filled with memorable pages,
Recording wars, and deeds sublime
That scatter night from perished ages.
But, ah! not one of these can chain
Such grand material for story
As leaf that registers thy name,
Though sorrow mingles with the glory.

V.

Unsparing, parracidal hands
Have lifted steel to pierce a mother
Whose fall, in many groaning lands
The spark of liberty would smother.
In vain have patriots implored—
Misled by chiefs whose hearts were rotten;
Revolted states have grasped the sword,
And every solemn oath forgotten.

VI.

An undivided North has sworn
This league of states shall not be broken;
Drum-beat, and blast of her bugle-horn
The marching of her hosts betoken.
Ask not, ask not, with lying mouth,
Unblushing preacher of Disunion!
“Why should the children of the South
With Northern mud-sills hold communion?”

VII.

Have we no partnership in graves
On Yorktown's plain, by Eutaw's water,
Where Britain sent her hireling slaves
Like driven cattle to the slaughter?
Who called New England craven when
She fought to guard your homes and alters,
While many of the Southern men
Grew loyal at the thought of halters?

VIII.

When Carolina's host had fled
From Camden in disgraceful panic,
The chief to victory that led
Was Greene, Rhode Island's brave mechanic.
The sword-cane and the bowie-knife
In peaceful times we never carry;
But strong must be the arm in strife
That downright northern blows can parry.

IX.

If gallant Marion from the tomb
Could rise, how stern would be his warning,
To see the land in deeper gloom
Than wrapped in it the nation's morning;
To hear wild wailing in the air,
And cries of havoc and disaster,
While tiger Slavery, in his lair,
Crouched for the life-blood of the master.

X.

That country never bleeds in vain
When the dread curse of war falls on her,

Though with a hecatomb of slain
She vindicates insulted honor.
When kind, paternal words are weak,
And spurned the calm appeal of reason,
The cannon's iron lips must speak
In thunder to the brood of Treason.

XI.

The poet cherishes belief
When nations reach the brink of ruin
Wake in their coffins sage and chief,
To preach against the foul undoing.
Hark! Marshfield by the sounding sea,
And Ashland call in tones of thunder—
“This mighty Empire of the Free
Rebellion must not rend asunder.”

XII.

Mount Vernon finds a voice, and cries
In tones of earnest supplication,
“Ye madmen, sever not the ties
Of fealty that States owe the Nation.”
The Hermitage has vocal grown
While near the storm of battle gathers—
“Strike! for the soil that freemen own,
Strike for the grave-mounds of your fathers.”

XIII.

Weep, Genius of Columbia, weep!
With proud, but bitter drops of sorrow,
Where Winthrop and Young Ellsworth sleep
The slumber that will know no morrow.

Like Bayard whose undimmed renown
Gleams like a cloudless star full brightly,
Or Sydney of the laurel crown,
They fell with harness on full knightly.

XIV.

What land can nobler heroes boast
Who in the van have died sublimely,
Than Lyon, Ajax of the host!
And gallant Baker, slain untimely.
For them the marble shafts of art
Would be a work of vain endeavor;
Their names upon the Nation's heart
Are written, and will last forever.

XV.

Beware of ice-bergs when afloat,
The mighty growth of polar winters;
Or Ocean when the strongest boat
With flail of surge he pounds to splinters.
For avalanches darkening day,
Watch, traveler, in Alpine regions!
They have been known to sweep away
An army with its bannered legions.

XVI.

Volcanic fires and earthquake shock
Mock at crowned heads and their dominions,
And deadly is the wild siroc
Lifting the sand waste on its pinions.
Terrific, these!—but lo, a sight
At which description lags and falters!
Armed millions rising in their might,
And as ONE MAN to guard their alters.

XVII.

No foreign foe pollutes our coast,
No Vandal horde of rash invaders
To rouse in arms a grander host
Than Hermit Peter's grim Crusaders.
Far louder than Orlando's horn
The tocsin of alarm is ringing,
And brighter than the blaze of morn
Our flag abroad its folds are flinging.

XVIII.

Oh! why should precious blood be spilled
By rending shot and dripping sabre,
Where God has with abundance filled
The bursting granaries of Labor?
Give answer, vile, insurgent crew,
More heartless far that fiends infernal,
To Country, Home and Heaven untrue,
And doomed to infamy eternal!

XIX.

No longer in your hellish hate,
A hope to crush this Union cherish:
Immutable and fixed as fate
Is the decree that Guilt must perish.
Truth's champions can know no fear,
For love divine is watching o'er them,
And frightened by their charging cheer,
The Powers of Darkness flee before them.

XX.

Port Royal has revived the fame
Of our lost Perrys and Decaturs;

When will that day of blood and flame
Be unremembered by the traitors?
Our roaring implements of death
Woke fear and trembling in that city
Where fell Rebellion first drew breath,
And armed his pirates and banditti.

XXI.

When “On to Richmond!” was the cry,
Talk not of routed thousands flying;
Dragoons and footmen rushing by,
Regardless of the dead and dying—
The “Chivalry” far greater speed
Have shown when meeting with reverses,
Leaving behind them in their need,
Arms, clothing, wretched scrip and purses.

XXII.

This government, insulted long,
By fiends who glory in transgression,
Though patient under grevious wrong
Now drains the life-blood of Secession.
The sceptred tyrants of the world
Who thought Columbia's doom was written
Ere sword is sheathed, or banner furled
By Freedom's gauntlet shall be smitten.

XXIII.

Old Pharisee of Nations! pause!
While covert aid to traitors lending;
Be wary when a righteous cause,
Bold, chainless millions are defending.

Deem not stern warning to beware,
Weak, idle words not worth the heeding;
Your Lion to his island lair
Twice have we driven maimed and bleeding.

XXIV.

The leaves of history are black
With thy iniquities unnumbered,
And darkly ambushed for attack
In vengeance that too long has slumbered.
In fierce pursuit of power and gold
The scourge of nations thou has proven:
For thee, like haughty Tyre of old,
The funeral pall will yet be woven.

XXV.

We ask no sympathy from thee
While insurrection frowns defiant,
More strong, grey Robber of the Sea!
Will tower again this Western Giant.
Hark! to the stormy battle-song
Of freemen on their march victorious,
And banish hope that fraud and wrong
Can overthrow this Empire glorious.

OUR BANNER.

I.

The red on our flag is the herald of dawn
While curtains that darken the East are withdrawn;

Like thunderbolts launched from the heart of a cloud,
Each stripe lends a gleam to War's sulphury shroud.
Then, while the breath of the tempest shall fan her,
Let red have a place on the folds of our banner.

II.

The white is an emblem of peace to the world
When the black flag of Treason forever is furled—
That stainless in name should the champion be
Who fights with a strong arm for the Land of the Free.
Then, while the breath of the tempest shall fan her,
Let white have a place on our glorious banner.

III.

For clustering stars a rich ground work of blue
Its folds from the dome of the firmament drew,
And the planets of Heaven shall darken with rust
Ere Columbia's ensign is trailed in the dust.
Then, while the breath of the tempest shall fan her,
Let blue have a place on the folds of our banner.

IV.

Up, up for the conflict, ye valiant and true,
And die ere dishonored the “Red, White and Blue!”
Tear down from its staff the Palmetto and Snake!
While the ranks of Secession grow frightened and break,
To victory ride o'er the dying and dead,
Like the horsemen of Gaul with Murat at their head.

MARTIAL MUSIC.

I.

Sound, sound the Spartan fife;
The Persian banners wave,
And, marching to the strife,
Let music thrill the brave;
Above the clash of steel,
The shock of meeting foes,
The charger's clattering heel,
The ringing twang of bows,
A bolder strain is played,
And Persia flies dismayed.

II.

Castile is up in arms
Against the Moor to-day;
Sword-clang and loud alarms
Announce the coming fray;
The atabal is heard,
Thrown by are light djerreeds,
And, on to conflict spurred,
Rush, Yemen's milk-white steeds:—
“Il Allah!” loud and high
Their turbaned riders cry.

III.

Beat time upon the drum—
A brisker measure play—
Old England's warriors come
In thunder to the fray.

Their bayonets are bright,
In blood to redden soon—
Oh! cheer them to the fight
With still a bolder tune;
One shock, and all is o'er—
Crushed foes can form no more.

IV.

Ring, out, wild bugle! ring
Thy loudest, clearest note
To horse the troopers spring,
While plume and pennon float;
They charge, and fallen lie
The broken, hollow squares,
While quaver shrill and high,
Gaul's ancient battle airs;
Their music valor warms,
And nerves strong hearts and arms.

V.

Blow, plaided piper blow
Some rousing Highland air,
For the victorious foe
Back Britain's bravest bear!
The piper louder plays,
The clans renew the fight,
And while their muskets blaze
Foes scatter wide in flight;
For how can Scotland quail
When music cheers the Gael!

VI.

Hark! ‘Hail Columbia’ wakes
A thrill in free-born breasts;
The hostile column quakes,
And shorn are nightly crests;
Where man encounters man,
And shot and shell rain fast,
Our banner in the van
Is flapping on the blast;
The earth with foemen strown—
A host is overthrown!

BATTLE CALL.

I.

Up and arm! Up and arm, for the land is in danger;
On footmen, and horsemen, and swift rifle ranger;
Leave shop, office, factory, counters and farms,
While the cry thrills all hearts, one and all fly to arms!
Let cowards retreat,
While our starred banner-sheet
Flaps the gale.

II.

Up and arm! Up an arm, for the hordes of Secession
Are marching against us, all black with transgression;

Our thinned ranks of Northmen let freemen recruit,
The soil of the Key-Stone their footsteps pollute:
Let cowards retreat,
While our starred banner-sheet
Flaps the gale.

III.

Up and arm! for the soil by our fathers adored!
The best cure for treason are shot, shell and sword;
Then rush like the waves of the sea to the shock,
Let us meet them as met by the surge is the rock.
Let cowards retreat,
While our starred banner-sheet
Flaps the gale.

IV.

Up and arm for the country of Carroll and Wirt!
Shall freemen the flag of the Union desert;
Shall Washington fall, while base faction prevails,
And the dagger of Treason our Union assails?
Let cowards retreat,
While our starred banner-sheet
Flaps the gale.

V.

Up and arm! In the thunder and smoke of the strife
My curse on the wretch who would not offer life
In guarding the fabric upreared by our sires,
While blazes on each hill-top the land's beacon fires:
Let cowards retreat,
While our starred banner-sheet
Flaps the gale.

VI.

Up and arm! though the wife of your bosom is dying,
The children you love on their death-beds are lying;
Far better a grave in the soil you defend,
Than dastard, drag out a long life to the end.
Let cowards retreat,
While our starred banner-sheet
Flaps the gale.

ODE.

I.

Lo! stainless as the mountain sleet,
A chaplet decks Columbia's brow;
No blot is on her banner-sheet,
No cloud on her escutcheon now:
A grander, more inspiring lay
Should thrill Earth's mighty heart to-day
Than stirred it when the Red sea coast
Was grim with corpses of a host.

II.

Oh! what a voice of jubilee,
From liberated millions rose,
When Sherman, marching to the sea,
With mortal fear alarmed his foes;

Blood-dripping lash, and clanking chain,
Are banished from our vast domain,
And freedmen cultivate the sod
Where the great captain's war-horse trod.

III.

Crows, northward winging overhead
Their way from fields of desperate fight,
Tales of the unreturning dead
Seem croaking in their heavy flight:—
Long absent they are flocking back
To olden haunts in funeral black,
And may their beaks in precious gore
Of brethren steeped be nevermore.

IV.

Peace to the fallen! hostile thought,
And vengeful vow should be supprest
Since the great conflict has been fought,
And Union's cause with triumph blest.
Bones of our perished warriors lie,
Land of the South! beneath thy sky,
And dust of northern hearts must be,
“Till crack of doom,” a part of thee.

V.

And where war rolled his purple waves
Through thy broad realm the generous West
Won partnership with thee in graves
Where martyrs of the struggle rest.
Friends now, but late thy foes, we feel
That thou wert worthy of our steel,
And that thy sons, in league with ours,
Could tame a bad world's banded powers.

VI.

Victorious, we scorn to tear
One leaf, in view of Stonewall's tomb
From laurel thine the right to wear,
One feather from thy battle plume:
Ere slavery died unwept, unsung,
A plague-spot to thy beauty clung:
New-trimmed thine alter-flame to-day
Emits a purer, holier ray.

VII.

Between stern North and fiery South,
Although a thousand hopes are wrecked,
Acquaintance at the cannon's mouth
Begot a mutual respect.
The brave resentment never know
When overthrown a gallant foe,
Baptised by fire and leaden rain,
Who measured strength with them in vain.

VIII.

No longer like red levin glows
Bellona's torch from shore to shore;
With autumn leaves and wintry snows
Its embers have been covered o'er;
And richer for the bloody toil
Of foemen is the quickened soil,
And growing on heroic graves,
With ranker growth the harvest waves.

IX.

The fiery passions of the strife
Thus in the hearts of men will die,

And flowers of love and nobler life
Spring up where cold their ashes lie:—
Again the myrtle loves to twine
Its blossoms round the northern pine,
And healing winds are breathing balm
Upon the wounded southern palm.

SHENANDOAH VALLEY.

I.

Lo! Shenandoah from its source,
And, northward, where it runs its course,
Flows with a mournful murmur, on;
Town-spires have vanished, one by one,
They flash not in the setting sun,
Nor catch the glow of dawn.

II

The reddened hoof of Battle, shod
With thunder, through thy vale hath trod
So often that nor song of bird,
Nor pastoral music as of yore
Is near thy mournful current heard
Imbued with fratricidal gore:
Hearths of once happy homes are cold,
The shepherd finds no flock to fold;
Away marauding bands have spurred
Driving the last steer of the herd,

And nought betokens even life
Where raged the roar and rush of strife,
Save, howling for the hand that fed,
The watch-dog with his famished form,
Or wanderer, in affluence bred,
Without a place to lay his head,
Or house him from the storm.

III.

The smithy lies in ruin low,
The bellows hath forgot to blow;
Unstirred by bell-stroke in the air
When Sabbath brings a call to prayer;
Hushed is the clatter of the mill—
The hum of Industry is still;
A pall is o'er the hamlet thrown,
Gray ashes mark its site alone;
And grim with half-uncovered graves,
Too thick to number like thy waves,
Are fields of mortal conflict seen
The wolf alluring from his lair
To hold, with flocking ravens, there
A carnival obscene.

IV.

Wyoming! valley, famed in song,
Where right waged war with lawless wrong,
Thou wert a region of delight,
When o'er thy memorable fight,
Compared with Shenandoah's vale
Where every land-mark tells a tale
Of ruin, wo and blight.

Rich carpets, gilded picture-frames,
Heir-looms that told of “Long Ago,”
Gay Cavaliers, and courtly dames
Were flung, rich fuel, to the flames.
While bivouacked the foe.

TOURNAMENT OF DEATH; OR, READ'S LAST RIDE.

I.

Rich in proud memories is the pass
Where perished of old Leonidas,
His precious blood libation free
Poured out at the shrine of liberty:
But this mighty world of the West can boast
As great a name in freedom's host,
To grandly peal in a nation's shout,
When our banner of stars is flaming out,
Inspiring men in the desperate fight
To conquer, or die for God and the Right.
Then crown with laurel, Read!
With deathless laurel, Read!
For never rode in glory's van
A braver, or a better man,
Upon his battle steed.

II.

The spurring courier tidings brought
That junction Lee with Johnston sought,
Determined, although great his loss,
The Appomattox bridge to cross,
And changing base the war prolong
With a force an hundred thousand strong,
Read hurried, with a weak array,
To bring the southern chief to bay,
Though suffering from wounds unhealed
Received on many a desperate field.
Then crown with laurel, Read!
With deathless laurel, Read!
For never rode in glory's van
A braver, or a better man,
Upon his battle steed.

III.

When reached his post of peril dire
He shouted, while his eye flashed fire,
“We must hold this bridge, my lads! or die—
If they pass it must be where our corpses lie.”
With fearful odds the foe rushed on,
Drums beat the charge, and blades were drawn,
But the blue jackets charged the grey,
And the head of their column was swept away.
Then crown with laurel, Read!
With deathless laurel, Read!
For never rode in glory's van
A braver, or a better man,
Upon his battle steed.

IV.

Again, and again were driven back
The Rebel ranks in their fierce attack;
Where man met man, and steed met steed
Charged, under spur, the gallant Read:
Never Murat of the snow-white plume,
Whose shout was an army's knell of doom,
Fought on with more of skill and might
In the red maelstrom of the fight,
And cheered by foes was this warrior true
Leading to death his devoted few.
Then crown with laurel, Read!
With deathless laurel, Read!
For never rode in glory's van
A braver, or a better man,
Upon his battle steed.

V.

Though bleeding fast, with sword in hand,
While melted away his Spartan band,
Read marked a general of the foe
Tower in their van for the final blow,
But he shouted, with a flashing eye,
“We must hold the bridge, my lads, or die!”—
Then met in the shock of fearful fight,
The rebel chief, like a belted knight,
While dead from their steeds that bore them well
Both, in that stern encounter, fell.
Then crown with laurel, Read!
With deathless laurel, Read!
For never rode in glory's van
A braver, or a better man,
Upon his battle steed.

VI.

Thus the back-bone of treason broke,
For Lee received his mortal stroke
When Read in manhood's glorious morn,
Made battle with his “hope forlorn,”
While crimson from their wounds outwelled,
And Appomattox Bridge was held.
On fame's unmoulding column traced,
High will this feat of arms be placed,
And all who perished on that day
In the nation's heart be enshrined for aye.
Then crown with laurel, Read!
With deathless laurel, Read!
For never rode in glory's van
A braver, or a better man,
Upon his battle steed.

SONG.

I.

Jeff's Kingdom of Cotton with infamy rotten
Was doomed to succumb to our glorious flag;
The brave rallied under the stars while in thunder
Was torn into shreds his piratical rag,
The stream, from its fountain, on Look Out's proud mountain,
Hath drank flowing down a libation of blood;
The doom of transgression has smitten secession
Where dark Chattanooga rolls onward his flood.

II.

Shout loud, ho, hosannah! the stripes o'er Savannah,
Red symbols of doom to proud tyranny wave,
Stern Justice hath risen, and lo! from his prison
Bursts Freedom announcing redress to the slave.
False South! heed the sermon that practical Sherman,
From mouths of his cannon propounded to you;
His legions are chaunting—“weighed well, and found wanting.”
Are wretches who trod on the “Red, White and Blue.”

III.

Proud Charleston is humbled for Sumter hath crumbled,
To ruin her storm-beaten battlements hurled;
That eloquent preacher of liberty, Beecher,
Her funeral oration pronounced to the world.
Our famished and dying in dungeons were lying
Where batteries frowned on the banks of the James;
No longer they languish—forgotten their anguish
In Sheridan's march, and the roaring of flames.

IV.

Death only brings terror to black guilt and error,
His skull-bones affright not the just and the true;
What shroud for the martyr who loves Freedom's charter
More prized than the glorious “Red, White and Blue?”
Our eagle his pinion once more, Old Dominion!
Flaps o'er you while Earth hears his conquering cry;
The bright bow of promise, so long absent from us,
Again arches over Columbia's sky.

OUR LOYAL DEAD.

I.

Our martyred dead, our martyred dead!
The land is billowed with their graves;
Sods were uptorn to make their bed
While rolled the battle's purple waves:
Few, near their shrouded fathers rest,
With funeral flowers their couches drest.

II.

Ah! thousands worn, and famine-pale
Died captives of the cruel foe,
No mourner save the blast to wail
Where famished men were lying low;
While the hill-tops catch morning's flame
Their native North will guard their fame.

III.

Rust will consume the blades they drew,
Moths eat the banner that the bore,
But deeds of men to Freedom true
In generous hearts live evermore;
Time drops his scythe, and Death flings by
His dart, when heroes nobly die.

IV.

Their mission ends not when the goal
Of life through blood and toil they gain,
Although the muffled bells we toll
While slow move hearse and funeral train;
Crushed cages of the soul we bear,
But where the spirit? tell me where?

V.

Inspiring hearts whose pulses keep
Time to the battle-march of truth,
Waking the bondsman from his sleep,
And giving age a second youth:
Though echoless their footsteps fall
I see their shadows on the wall.

VI.

Along my nerves their whispers low
Awaken an electric thrill;
They come to share our joy and woe,
Are living, loving, breathing still;
By man's dim, clouded gaze unseen
The dead, to-night, with us convene.

VII.

Ye mourners! throw your weeds away,
Let no wild requiem be sung;
The voices of the slain all day
Have in mine ear like harp-notes rung:
We number them with bright things fled,
But they exist whom we call dead.

VIII.

Spectators, listeners! they have heard
The words that from my tongue have rolled,
And, when my heart grew faint, have stirred
My bosom with the fires of old:
Although unseen by mortal sight
The dead move, in our midst, to-night.

IX

Assure them, ere they cross again
The cold, dark stream that knows no tide,
Whose waves the realm where seraphs reign
From this dark land of storm divide,
A generous band will pay the debt
Of gratitude we owe them yet.

X.

Up with the monumental tower,
Or rear the cenotaph on high,
In honor of our dead—the flower
Of Livingston's proud chivalry:
Kind ladies! men of generous mould,
Part with your jewels, rings and gold!

XI.

Crown with a shaft of marble pale,
Or granite gray, yon upland swell
That overlooks a lovelier vale
Than Arno's, of which poets tell,
In honor of the brave who died
That Union's ark the wave might ride.

XII.

While by our household fires we sit
Recall the lads who dared to die
When, crimson to each bridle-bit,
The steeds of havoc thundered by—
Died that this league of States might be
Soldered with blood eternally.

XIII.

When we forget our loyal dead
Who nobly fell for hearth and shrine,
Black be the pall o'er nature spread,
Our valley red with blood like wine:
Then let their funeral shaft uptower
A rallying place in danger's hour.

DECORATION DAY.

I.

Cometh from bright, Elysian fields,
Air that such balmy odor yields,
Or is it sweetened by the breath
Of Flora at the gates of death?
Immortelles, reaped on holy ground,
Wreath the Pale Mower's scythe around,
While flits the phantom of a smile
His ashen visage o'er the while.

II.

Marble forget-me-nots of art
Lone grandeur to the tomb impart
Linked, towering precious dust above
To pride, not sentiments of love,
'Till wreaths fair hands delight to form,
Their monumental coldness warm,
Tears in each cup, and chalice bright
Dropped by the star eyed mourner, Night.

III.

The fancy of the gifted Greek
Through language of the flowers would speak;
Mute pathos of each withering leaf
Gave to bruised hearts a blest relief
When childhood died, or early lost
On beauty fell destroying frost:—
Thus Pericles of sternest mould
Wept, crowning Paralus of old.

IV.

Oh! to the nation's heart how dear
Dust of the martyrs buried here;
Long in this Greenwood of the soul
For them may voices call the roll!
To sepulchres in which they lie,
With frozen pulse and curtained eye,
May future generations pay
The reverent care we show to-day.

V.

Give to the pansy, streaked with jet,
Place in a funeral coronet
Beside the lily of the vale
To grace tall shaft, or headstone pale.
Forget not, yet that mourn, between
Frail buds to weave the evergreen,
Sign that the faithful dead will be
Kept ever green in memory.

VI.

From Holy Writ we learn, alas!
“Man's glory as the flower of grass”

Blooms for a bright, and fleeting day
Then fades, and vanisheth away.
Meet, therefore, for these grassy beds,
Where pillowed lie heroic heads,
Are garlands, wet with tearful showers,
Culled from the sisterhood of flowers.

VII.

Tri-colored blossoms thickly spread
Over each warrior's narrow bed,
In tint and shade conforming well
With the dear flag for which they fell.
Bring roses of auroral glow,
Lilies that shame the mountain snow,
And to complete the colors three,
Bring blue bells from the Genesee.

VIII.

The “Flower of Love lies bleeding” well
With mute significance will tell
How mothers of the martyred brave
Were brought in sorrow to the grave;
How wife, and broken-hearted maid
Still mourn for valor lowly laid,
And widowhood of sable veil,
Sobs out wild dirge-notes to the gale.

IX.

In spirit on this hallowed day,
I visit hillocks far away,
And over them I long to fling
Bright, floral treasures of the Spring.

There son and brother moulder on,
While Love grows pale and woe-begone
To think, on mounds of their repose,
Not one poor native wild-flower grows.

X.

Fain would I grace blood-moistened earth
With tributes from their place of birth;
The dandelion's brooch of gold
Pluck from the tartan of the wold,
Or common flowers that smile at morn,
Near the lost homes where they were born,
To whisper on each lorn, drear spot,
“One faithful heart forgets ye not!”

XI

Endeared is Albion's chalky strand
By sports of merry Motherland
When dancing feet of nymphs kept time
Round May-poles, to soft music's chime;
And on the daisied village green
Crowned was a young and blushing queen,—
But doubly dear henceforth is May
Hallowed by “Decoration Day.”

XII.

Oh! is it not a thought sublime
That at this blest, appointed time,
From dark Atlantic's coast-line grand
To far Pacific's golden strand,—
From orient hills in purple drest
To prairies of the mighty West;
From Northland to Floridian bowers,
Heroic graves are strewn with flowers.

XIII.

With leaves that “sad embroidery” wear
From field and grove cull wildlings rare
To symbolize our speechless woe
For rank and file, laid early low,
That nevermore one bondsman's chain
Might clank on Freedom's broad domain,
And, blood-cemented, to the skies
Our temple, block by block, might rise.

XIV.

The “Mountain Daisy,” by the plow
Of Burns upturned, is blooming now,
More fortunate than sister flowers,
It fades not with the fleeting hours;
And honored well will be the bard,
Thrice blest, no longer evil-starred,
If, song embalmed, to perish never,
These funeral wreaths bloom on forever.