The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-05-31
NOT DEAD.

lead at Charlottesville, May 20, by Comrade Ben
House.l
Not AS the bearer of pail.
Midst moaning muifie of the drums,
come to-day but one comes
Who keeps an honored festival
No army clad in grisly guise.
A long array OF feshless bones,
Vexing the air with hollow means.
Defles before my searching eyes.
The dropping banners hanging low,
Are not to me as signs of grief;
But as their dropping TO a chief
When loud-saluting bugles blow.
The mounds to-day with garlandS dreso
do not see as graves Of dead.
But as n camp where tents spread,
And living comrades lie at rest
For life is more than air can give
And not alone in breath its roots;
For every act that from it shoots
Beyond breath S losing still must live
And theirs the wheel of progress whirled
Along the forward course of right,
And sent it spinning into light
From where the smoke of battle curled.
All, could fifty here rehearse
How they to honor whom we've met,
The catch upon the ratchet set
To hold it firm against reverse
Then with mine eyes would We behold
How o er their heads glory broke
AS nimbus of that battle smoke
Each painting hero aureoled;
Nor fail to see they only threw
From their worn lives the harness Off
That all their dying TO doff
The outward armOr that ye knew.
With love and duty hard at strife,
o, mothers who at parting knelt,
And anguisheo psngs as bitter felt
AS when your sons We're given life,
Know that though they from sight have gone
Their deeds adown the years shall ring
The throb of that RESTLESS spring
That whrls the wheels of progress on.
Look back where right stemmed errors flood,
With eyes of pride upon the force
That sent it forward on its course,
Forged from the iron of your blood.
Where wrote widow" on its page
o. sadtlened eyes upon it bent,
Read there the proven testament
That wills heros heritage.
o, woman holding yet some name
In your sad heart all else above.
Not chiidless your undying love-
You are the mother Of his fame.
That from the life which ends in dust,
They did not go with fear to give
AT last, its remnants worn with rust;
That ears of theirs caught grander sounds
Than are the chords of common life,
Born of the markets petty strife,
Whose every note with self abounds.
Let signs of mourning cease to be,
And every sob of grief be drowned
BY chords which they in battle found,
Whose theme is peace and liberty,
For those we fought, in all my song
Not any thread of hate is bent
Who, urged by their environment,
Against US battled for the wrong.
Ours was the triumph, theirs the grief
Ofthose who unto losing led
A. freely as our comrades ble1-
Dared all and died for their belief.
Within my heart no hatred lives;
Not mine to look with deeper ken
Than He who chastens wrong, and then
The doers of the wrong forgives.
do not know that they will wake
Our comrades, as their tents above
We lay the tokens OF our love
Or through their sleep their fragrance break.
But still go with trusting shod.
To read the record that they made,
Writ with the stylus of the spade,
Upon the corrugated rod.
CHANGING along the forward route,
Mine eyes aHght with hopeful glow
Of faith that all the flowers strew
VIII ripen into perfect fruit;
And that the heirs who stand beside
This record of their deathlcss fame,
Sealed at the battles melting flame,
VIII garner it with loyal pride
And should the nations bugles plead,
Where waves OF battle ebb and How
Their children will as freely go
As did their fathers III her need