Sentinel Songs

When falls the soldier brave   Dead—at the feet of wrong,— The poet sings, and guards his grave   With sentinels of song. Songs, march! he gives command,   Keep faithful watch and true; The living and dead of the Conquered Land   Have now no guards save you. Grave Ballads! mark ye well!   Thrice holy is your trust! Go! halt! by the fields where warriors fell,   Rest arms! and guard their dust. List, Songs! your watch is long!   The soldiers’ guard was brief, Whilst right is right, and wrong is wrong,   Ye may not seek relief. Go! wearing the gray of grief!   Go! watch o’er the Dead in Gray! Go guard the private and guard the chief,   And sentinel their clay! And the songs, in stately rhyme,   And with softly sounding tread, Go forth, to watch for a time—a time,   Where sleep the Deathless Dead. And the songs, like funeral dirge,   In music soft and low, Sing round the graves,—whilst not tears surge   From hearts that are homes of woe. What though no sculptured shaft   Immortalize each brave? What though no monument epitaphed   Be built above each grave? When marble wears away,   And monuments are dust,— The songs that guard our soldiers’ clay   Will still fulfil their trust. With lifted head, and steady tread,   Like stars that guard the skies, Go watch each bed, where rest the dead,   Brave Songs! with sleepless eyes.