The Portland daily press., 1895-05-31

Continued from First Page.
eloquent prayer, after which the consoli-
dated bands played a dirge. Then Hon.
Joseph W. Symonds was presented by
Marshal Shaw, and delivered the pre-
sentation address as follows:
JUDGE sYMONDs' ADDRESS.
We reach today consummation long
and devoutly wished Even before the
war for the Union closed, by the voice of
common consent, by one throbbing i'm
pulse of the community in those times
of deep and excited feeling, by one thrill
of the popular heart, this central and
beautiful spot on which we are standing
now, originally intended for the chapel,
had been assigned for the soldiers mon
ument. The title to it passed long ago to
the Trustees of Bosworth Post, No. 2,
6. A. r. in trust for the commemorative
purposes to which it was to be forever de-
voted; and by that Post it was solenmly
dedicated as memorial ground twenty
five years ago today. Many of us hardly
remember the time when this place was
not known as the site of the proposed
soldiers monument. Soldiers and sailors
have been at rest in these graves for
many years. All the associations that
link themselves with memories OF untold
heroism and sacrifice have gathered about
1T for generation.
But the monument was not built.
Year after year it was deferred, here as it
had been in Portland. Many causes COM
bined to delay the work, none could pre-
vent its final accomplishments, here Or
there; and it is perhaps true that the late
erection of soldiers monument, its ded-
icatioh at this distant day, after so many
intervening years have crowded the fore
ground of life with other events, may be
a truer and finer illustration of the depth
and vitality of the sense of obligation
and gratitude cherished by our society for
the men who bore in our behalf the shock
and peril of the war for the Union, than
if the work had been completed at an
earlier date. That might have been q
passing impulse; this is the lasting trib-
ute. That might have been the excite
ment of an hour; this has in it something
of the silence and calm of a. later age,
gratefully and proudly surveying the
past, looking backward upon the great
motive and action, looming in the dis
tance high above the levels of common
things, as mountain SUBMITS glittering
far into the sky loom above the plain.
The soldiers monument in Portland
was erected late, but it stands in the very
heart of the city; a masterpiece of our
native sculptor whose genius and fame
,
his native State All ways lead to and
from it. Busy life flows and throbs about
it, or perhaps now and then lifts it's. head
to catch breath of the serener air, in
which the Republic at peace and in re-
pose, with sheathed sword keeps eternal
vigil over the memory of those who died
in their youth that the nation might live
Happy the man who looks in real life
upon the realization of some high hope
he has cherished with a friend who is
dead tis ia
1t was favorite wish, or perhaps Il
should say rather an earnest expectation,
of our lamented fellowtownsman, the
Honorable Nathan Cleaves, that he might
find opportunity during his life to provide
for the erection of a soldiers monument
in Evergreen Cemetery. 1t was a thing
he desired to do most of all as an express
sion of his own thought and feeling; and
also as identifying himself with what
pertained to the deepest and truest senti-
ment of the community in which he had
lived and labored, which had honored
him, and where his own personal success
had been SO nobly and honorably won.
In his lifetime he had often spoken of
this as a thing they might do together,
to his distinguished younger brother
with whom all his life was shared By
his sudden death this hope seemed OBJ
scured, as many another brilliant pros
pCCU Ol Ulo lIuuf6 Was 0AUluS ulSIlcu. buU
it was not so; the hope was hallowed,
not eclipsed or obscured. What had been
a distant hope or expectation of the liv-
ing. far off almost as a dream, something
to be done by and by when the fruition
of life had come, had now become the
sacred wish of the dead, it's fulf1llment to
be no longer delayed.
And so within less than three years
from the death Of Nathan Cleaves, within
sight of his last resting place, where love
and honor guard his repose this beauti-
full soldiers monument, the erection of
which fulf1lls one of his most cherished
plans, his own gift and the gift of his
brother who had shared this enthusiasm
with him, now the Governor of the State
his gift with the history of Maine, passes
into the solemn and tender keeping of
the Bosworth Post, now and forevermore,
trust as sacred and immortal as the
virtue it commentaries =
Only less sacred and immortal than
that for this monument, enduring as it
seems is of granite and bronze, things
ideal and eternal. "The dart that pierced
the Persian breastplate moulders in
the dust of Marathon, but the arrow of
Pindar quivers at this hour with the life
of his bow - There is no inscription
upon the nameless mound under which
the Greeks who fell there lie buried, but
the world remembers them, remembers
that by their faithfulness unto death the
barbarismyof the East was rolled back
the glory Of Greece became possible. The
deep under currents Of human life may be
charged with the influences of an heroic
past poetry may be winged with the
memories of it, long after tables of stone
and iron on which its record is written,
or monuments built to commemorate it
have crumbled into dust.
"To our comrades In honor of the
living, in grateful memory of the dead, F."
the legend upon this pedestal reads.
In honor of the living, of those who
still survive of the glorious company
that was welcomed home from the war,
returning some of them in health and
strength, some of them already suffering
the effect of exposure, exhaustion and
wounds, and some of them to linger in
pain and inffrmity from then until now
sharing the grief as we'll as the glory,
like many of the soldiers and sailors OF
Maine, like many who are here; like the
distinguished soldier whose presence after
recent illness every eye gladly greets to,
day, who besides the brilliant role OF
Al C