National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1886-06-05
MEMORIAL DAY,
At National Cemetery, Arlington, Va,
May so (31), 1886.
POEM BY JAMES NJ. STEWART.

Bride Of the Summer beauteous month of
Thou latest, lovellest dau ,h'er OF the Spring
We thank hee for his dear Memorial Day,
Thy gifts OF flowers which on these graves shall
And fade in beauty, and in fragrance die.
Soldiers again with reverent awe we tread,
This field, Gods acre. hallowed by the dead
We meet again this side the mystic gate
Which marks tho boundary Of the realm
We meet in peace, as those who listening wait,
With swords unslung, the evening TAPS" OF
time.
Why come we hither-growlug old
Pale pilgrims Of the past?
Why listen tales so often told,
Still best as told the lasG2
All joyous nature wears smile,
Then why not we? Why muse the while
OF days gone by? All mists OF years
Dissolve life's sunshine into tears:
And souls, once buoyant, bear heavier load,
The feet, once swift, now plod a weary road.
What are these graves to us? All lands OF
Earth
Are crowded full OF bones. There Is Ut dearth
OF sorrow wheresoever we may go;
OF fevered faces by affection famed
OF wounds son-louched by gentle PHYS
hand;
or deepening sadness shading into woe.
This is our couHtry's altar. This retreat
And we, her children, hither turn our feet
One day in all the year. Ahl time too brief
For gratitude TO pay It's heavy debt,
For lips TO murmur all the vast regret.
Here sleep our patriot dead,
Here all the ground we tread
Is sacred as old Egypt's tempted Isle,
OF chancel In some vast cathedral pile,
Where kneeling pilgrim deems that heaven he
As swell the chants of solemn litanies,
A tna Vig In nd nNfr
And vestured priests the relics old reveal,
These men, these dead were heroes. Nor in
vain
Fell they on battle fields among the slain.
Hither, from near and from the further lands
Their bones were brought by gentle, faithful
hands,
Wars fearful harvest garnered. Here the
Was offered with low voice and reyerent
grace,
The solemn dirge was sung, and heavens own
Winged hither through eternal fields of
That incense gathered breathed along this sod,
And bore 1t heavenward to the home of God.
Nor prayer, though blent with mournful dIrge
And voiced with all the tenderness of soul,
Nor relics old, nor emblems borne around,
With solemn mien and words of pious dole,
Gould ballow this retreat, this sylvan scene,
These groves. these graves In solitude serene.
His be the higher need
As his the grander deed,
The precious gift who gave,
When fastening to the grave
Each man who slumbering lies,
In honor fairly won.
Beneath the bending skies
That arch fair Arlington,
Whose crumbling bones in Silly silence walt
The great archangers call,
When trembling heavens shall fall,
These, only these this ground can consecrate
Thine was the thought, o Presl lent beloved
Our nations gentle martyr who may bear
That title honOred, thou whose sad fate moved
The world to grief, all kindly souls to prayer.
All loss supreme No woIthIer guest has
Beneath the eternal portal high and wide;
None dearer ever fell before the blast.
Than sank In death when martyr Lincoln
died.
Raise not for him the towering SHAFT and grand;
Put sculptured marble to some baser use;
Let not ambition lift the daring hand,
Memorial meet to fashion and produce.
He needs 1t not. His was the simpler life,
Till Jealous fortune led him to the path
Where ruder passions rule, and men are rife
For plot, intrigue, or darker decd of wrath
How grand his mission and how we'll defined
Fulfilled, let the eternal years proclaim
Write, memory, grave II on the Douhdless mind,
And thou canst never write purer tame.
Fanes sink to dust; the lofty shalt shall fall
Rent, crushed, n ruin strewu along the earth
Oblivion's mantle shall enyelop all
Save that which lives in the amending birth,
The Spartan hero In the rock may be,
but where the chisel faithful to reveal
None can perpeluate ThermopylW
As he who fell beneath the Persian steel.