Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1871-05-31
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TcoNTINUED FROM FIRST PAeE.J
Glorious in beauty though it be, is SCARED
With tokens of old wars thy massive limbs
Are, strong with struggling. Power at tnee ' mas
His bolts and with his lshtninss s%ittsF9 r thee
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep,
And his swart armorers, by thousand hres
NE links are sI sbiyered and the prison walls :
Fall outward terribly thou sprlngest forth.
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And sho1test to the nations. who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies"
Well is the land worth saving which has cost
so much. But to the price which our fathers
Maid. their sons have added their ouota-a
mighty payment of blood and tears. It was
terrible that four years struggle for the ma
tion's life, but the life was worth the struggle.
1t was 8 strife in which all hearts grew faint,
and which sent mourning and woe through
every part of the land; The slow, relentless
mills of God, that grind ever on, surrender not
one grain to human grief and tears. From our
midst to either side Of this mighty conflict, we
sent our best and bravest forth. Aching hearts
waited for them in ten thousand homes. Sor-
row and tears have visited every neighborhood
and hamlet; and the MANNED and the orphaned
go about our streets, These all died that our
land might be saved-these sleepers here in
blue, those in yonder cemetery IN gray-all
alike, are the price of the institutions we love
the priceless sacrifice for us who live. Still, as
ever it is that
EVERY gift on freedoms shrine
-e,- - Is man for beast, and blood for wine"
But the soldiers sacrifice is not the only one
poured on our country's altar There were
those in thousands of quiet homes, who sent the
then, through the weary months and years,
waited for his unreturning steps; who, mid the
sickness of hope deferred, kept the weary vigil
at home; whose part in the great strife it was to
wait and pray, and to bear the heavy burden of
poverty and want, and the long agony of sus-
pense and fear: to sit at last in the sad homes
whence the light has fed forever, and to which
the feet that rest here shall return no more.
1t is meet that we should do them honor-the
dead-for their country's sake; those unnamed
and accomplishing heroes and heroines, who
for their c0untry's sake darkened all their lives
and gave up their loved ones to death.
Cold lips of monumental marble are power
less to tell the love and gratitude we owe and
pay to that army of noble souls whose sacrifices
have redeemed our land. Their fitting monu-
ment is the land they saved. While our rivers
roll to the sea- they shall tell of the time when
their streams ran red with fraternal blood, and
all their frightened waves shrunk back and
trembled at the wreck and roar of battle.
While our valleys bloom with beauty and
brighten with harvests, they shall show their
scars of war, and tell of the brave who died,
and of the graves that ridge their bosoms.
While our monumental mountains stand guard,
cliffs-they shall speak from all their caves and
SUBMITS of the tragedies they saw-of the deeds
of daring which they witnessed.
By tire deeds of our fathers-by the freely of
fered lives of our brothers-by all the glorious
psst and hopes of the future we stand pledged
that our Union and our free institutions, blood
bought and blood-redeemed, shall be guarded,
perfected and perpetuated while time shall last.
Our children and children's children through
ages to come, shall read the deathless records of
our struggle and strife and learn to honor the |
heroes whose sacrifice shall have made and kept |
their country great and free; and to prize be |
yond all reckoning the blessings bought for US /
and them, with such uncounted price of blood. /
These silent ranks arrayed around the flag be- |
meath whose folds they fought and for which |
they died cannot hear our praise; but we and |
our children, and the generations to come shall |
be more brave and true and loyal for the hon1- |
age which, year by year, we pay to those who |
died for US. In homestead and hall, let us pre- |
serve the sad relics of strife and sacrifce-the /
dinted sabre the battered musket, the faded |
uniform the banners torn and rent, shall tell |
with dumb mouths, in distant times, in elo- |
ouence passing all human speech, the story of
these pale sleepers' deeds.
There are other sleepers than those gathered |
here. Side by side, on thousand battlehelds, |
the blue and the gray slept their last sleep |
Both were our brothers, and both were brave, |
and the lives of all were part of the price of
what we now enjoy. For every grave we reckon, |
Somewhere on the hiilsides of the great North,
in the sunny valleys of the South, broken
heart and broken home The same sunlight
kisses their yerdant graves-the same soft airs
blow over their sleeping forms. Peace folds her
wings over all /; and with bowed faces in the
presence of the sleeping dead, We mourn for all
alike.
Long may it be ere our countrys life and
liberties demand like offering of lifelong
NAV the lessons and the holy memories of this
great sacrifice be kept by those who shall come
after us; and, while the mountains of our land
endure may her glorious union and her free in
situations last and her sons remember that
whether on the gaIlows high,
Or in the battles van, |
The fttest place for man to die, |
Is where he dies for man."