The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1870-12-17
The Burial of the Dead.
BY COL. THEODORE o'HARA, OF KExrUCx'


The author of the following lines was Col
Theodore o Hara, one of Kentucky's most
gifted sons-.equally brilliant as a soldier
and poet. He served with distinction in
the Confederate army, and was with Gen
Albert Sidney johnson when that distin-
guished leader was killed on the battlefield
of Shiloh in 1862. Col. O'Hara served with
the Kentucky troops III the Mexican war,
and the removal of the remains of the Ken
tuckians who fell at Buena Vista flor rein
terment at Frankfort. Ky,) was the occasion
which called forth this thrilling expression
ofa soldiers love for the fallen brave. Every
Confederate soldier will read these lines with
tender feeling now, since the brave and gen
erous o Hara, too, has gone to join his long
lost comrs.de.
The muffieS drums sad roll has beat
The sold RS last tattoo;
No more on life's parade shall meet
The brave and daring few.
On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And guards, with solemn round,
The biyouac of the dead.*
No answer to the foes advance
Now swells upon the wind;
No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior dream alarms
No braying horn and screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.
Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their naughty banner trailed In dust,
Is now their MAJ tial shroud;
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And their proud forms i'll battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.
The neighing steed, the flashing blade,
The trumpet's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past;
And wars wild note, nor glory's peal
Shall fill with fierce delight,
Those breasts that never more shall feel
The rapture Of fight.
Like the dread northern hurricane
That sweeps his broad plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serted foe:
Our heroes felt the shock, and leapt
To meet them on the plain;
And long the pitying sky hath wept
Above the gallant slain.
Sons of the consecrated ground,
Ye must not liuger there,
Where strangers steps and tongue resound
Along the needless air;
Your own proud land heroic soil
Shall be your filter grave;
She slGims from war her rightest spoil
The ashes of her brave.
So meath their pitying turf they rest,
Far from the CORY field;
Borne to Spartan Mothers breast,
On many a bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred hearts and eyes watch by
The hero's sepuichre.
Rest on embamed and sainted dead
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No inipious footsteps here shall tread
The heritage of youI grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hall0wed spot
Where Yalor proudly sleeps.
Your marble minstrels voiceless tone
In deathless songs shall tell,
When many a vanquished age hath flown,
The story how he fell;
| Nor wreck, nor change, nor winters blight,
| Nor times remorseIeSs doom,
| Shall dim one ray OF light
That gIlds your glorious tomb
1T is curious fact that at Arlington
Heights, tthe property of Mrs. Gen. Lee
taken by the GoveInment,) and the Soldier
Home, near Washington, and on Genera
Haye' monument in the cemetery at Pitts
burg, the lines of this verse are inscribed OF
the monuments erected in honor ofthe Fed
| aral soldiers killed in the late war