Decoration Day

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest
    On this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
    Nor sentry's shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,
    And started to your feet
At the cannon's sudden roar,
    Or the drum's redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death
    No sound your slumber breaks;
Here is no fevered breath,
    No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,
    Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease,
    It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
    The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
    Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green
    We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
    The memory shall be ours.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. Some of his famous works include "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Song of Hiawatha." Longfellow was one of the most popular American poets of his time and remains a significant figure in the canon of American literature.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Occultation Of Orion

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

The Lighthouse

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

Epimetheus Or The Poet's Afterthought

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

The Song Of Hiawatha - XIV - Picture-Writing

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

English

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Battle Days

I

Veteran memories rally to muster
Here at the call of the old battle days:
Cavalry clatter and cannon's hoarse bluster:
All the wild whirl of the fight's broken maze:
Clangor of bugle and flashing of sabre,
Smoke-stifled flags and the howl of the shell,
With earth for a rest place and death for a neighbor,
And dreams of a charge and the deep rebel yell.
Stern was our task in the field where the reaping
Spared the ripe harvest, but laid our men low:
Grim was the sorrow that held us from weeping:
Awful the rush of the strife's ebb and flow.
Swift came the silence - our enemy hiding
Sudden retreat in the cloud-muffled night:
Swift as a hawk-pounce our hill-and-dale riding;
Hundreds on hundreds we caught in their flight!
Hard and incessant the danger a...

George Parsons Lathrop

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;
H...

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

Memorial Day -1892

The quiet graves of our country's braves
    Through thirty Junes and Decembers
Have solemnly lain under sun and rain,
    And yet the Nation remembers.

The marching of feet and the flags on the street
    Told once again this morning,
In the voice of the drum how the day had come
    For those lowly beds' adorning.

Then swiftly back on Time's worn track
    His three decades seemed driven,
And with startled eyes I saw arise,
    From graves by fancy riven,

The Gray and Blue in a grand review.
    Oh! vast were the hosts they numbered,
As they wheeled and swayed in a dress parade
    O'er the graves where they long had slumbered.

The colours were not, as when they fought,
    Ranked one against the other,
But a mingled hue of ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Camps Of Green

Not alone those camps of white, O soldiers,
When, as order'd forward, after a long march,
Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessen'd, we halted for the night;
Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks;
Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up began to sparkle;
Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through the dark,
And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety;
Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums,
We rose up refresh'd, the night and sleep pass'd over, and resumed our journey,
Or proceeded to battle.

Lo! the camps of the tents of green,
Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling,
With a mystic army, (is it too order'd forward? is it to...

Walt Whitman

See The Field Of Battle Gleams.

See, the field of battle gleams
Yonward past the tented streams,
There the foe is camping;
By the thirst-assuaging rill,
From the copse behind the hill
Hear his war-steeds champing.

Northern Knights and Southern Sons,
Onward to the gleaming guns!
Now's the hour of battle!
Though his files be ten to one,
Seek the foe from sun to sun,
Where his muskets rattle.

O'er the walls with slaughter wet,
O'er the ball-scarred parapet,
Daring man and missile,
Charge to meet his best or worst,
Where his shrieking bombshells burst
And his bullets whistle.

Roll in waves of living blue,
Pierce the columned centre through,
Fill the world with wonder;
Rush, as with a lion's will,
Where his lightnings flash to kill
And his cann...

A. H. Laidlaw

The Soldier's Dream

Our bugles sang truce; for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:
'Twas autumn; and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed my back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strains that the ...

Thomas Campbell