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;
He is their Captain unafraid,
    The Prince of Peace . . . Who brought a sword.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American poet, journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and soldier. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world, he is best known for a short poem titled 'Trees' (1913), which was published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Kilmer's work has been widely anthologized and remains well-loved. He died during World War I in France at the age of 31.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

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Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

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Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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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

Memorial Day

    No warrior he, a village lad,
            needing nor words nor other prod
    To point his duty; he was glad
            to tread the path his fathers trod.
    Week days he worked in wood and field;
            with homely joys he decked his life;
    The sword of hate he would not wield,
            nor take a part in cankering strife.
    On Sunday in the little choir
            he sang of Peace and brotherly love,
    And as his thoughts soared higher and higher,
            they reached unmeasured heights above.

    A cry for Freedom rent the Land -
            "Our Country calls, come, come, 'tis War;
    Together let us firmly stand;"
            he answered, though his heart beat sore
    At leaving home, and kin, and one
            i...

Helen Leah Reed

Ode For Memorial Day

Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky over-arches,
Shelt'ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country's derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O'er the expanse of our mighty dominions,
Sweeping away to the uttermost parts,
Peace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,
Bringeth her message of joy to our hearts.

Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,
What did it cost for our fathers to gain!
Bought at the price of the heart's dearest treasure,
Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;
Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,
Sl...

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France

(To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in Paris, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1916.)


I

Ay, it is fitting on this holiday,
Commemorative of our soldier dead,
When - with sweet flowers of our New England May
Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray -
Their graves in every town are garlanded,
That pious tribute should be given too
To our intrepid few
Obscurely fallen here beyond the seas.
Those to preserve their country's greatness died;
But by the death of these
Something that we can look upon with pride
Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied
Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make
That from a war where Freedom was at stake
America withheld and, daunted, stood aside.


II

Be the...

Alan Seeger

Flowers Of France' Decoration Poem For Soldiers' Graves, Tours, France, May 30, 1918

Flowers of France in the Spring,
Your growth is a beautiful thing;
But give us your fragrance and bloom -
Yea, give us your lives in truth,
Give us your sweetness and grace
To brighten the resting-place
Of the flower of manhood and youth,
Gone into the dust of the tomb.

This is the vast stupendous hour of Time,
When nothing counts but sacrifice and faith,
Service and self-forgetfulness.    Sublime
And awful are these moments charged with death
And red with slaughter.    Yet God's purpose thrives
In all this holocaust of human lives.

I say God's purpose thrives.    Just in the measure
That men have flung away their lust for gain,
Stopped in their mad pursuit of worldly pleasure,
And boldly faced unprecedented pain
And dangers, without thin...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Silent Victors

MAY 30, 1878,

Dying for victory, cheer on cheer
Thundered on his eager ear.
            - CHARLES L. HOLSTEIN.

I

Deep, tender, firm and true, the Nation's heart
    Throbs for her gallant heroes passed away,
Who in grim Battle's drama played their part,
    And slumber here to-day. -

Warm hearts that beat their lives out at the shrine
    Of Freedom, while our country held its breath
As brave battalions wheeled themselves in line
    And marched upon their death:

When Freedom's Flag, its natal wounds scarce healed,
    Was torn from peaceful winds and flung again
To shudder in the storm of battle-field -
    The elements of men, -

When every star that glittered was a mark
    For Treason's ball, and every rippling ...

James Whitcomb Riley