O gallant brothers of the generous South,
Foes for a day and brothers for all time!
I charge you by the memories of our youth,
By Yorktown’s field and Montezuma’s clime,
Hold our dead sacred—let them quietly rest
In your unnumbered vales, where God thought best.
Your vines and flowers learned long since to forgive,
And o’er their...
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Mid the flower-wreathed tombs I stand
Bearing lilies in my hand.
Comrades! in what soldier-grave
Sleeps the bravest of the brave?Is it he who sank to rest
With his colors round his breast?
Friendship makes his tomb a shrine;
Garlands veil it: ask not mine.One low grave, yon trees beneath,
Bears no roses, wears no... -
I
1861–1865
but do we truly mourn our soldier dead,
Or understand at all their precious fame—
We that were born too late to feel the flame
That leapt from lowly hearths, and grew, dispread,
And, like a pillar of fire, our armies led?
Or you that knew them—do the long years tame
The memory-anguish? Are they more than name?
Oh...