Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1903-05-29
WHY We COMMEMORATE THIS DAY
Literally voice from the grave to lingering
Comrades.
By HON. FRANCIS HENRY

Why come We here with banners, speech and
song,
To decorate these graves with floral wrcaihs
And render homage to this sensclcss dust
The cr,.mbling elements of Mother Earth.
The fallen comrades we commemorate,
Who, in those gloomy, ill-foreboding days,
When brothers hand against his brother turned
The gray did pit itself against the blue,
And Saxon met Saxon in a struggle
Which convulsed the world, and the foundations
Of this Republic 10 their centers shook.
Did bear themselves so gallently and well
Upon the battles red and thund'ring front,
Now m:ngling with these clods. insensible
Alike to words of mortal praise or blame
Have left their part in things of sense to us.
Their arms stacked, their tents forever drawn,
Their beds are made in that eternal camp
Whose chief is Death, where Silence holds the
guard,
And like sentinel from the narrow box,
Echo mocks the living voice that halls the dead.
Nor fife, nor drum. nor bugle's warning note,
Shall vibraie on their tuneless ears, or warm
Their pulseess hearts to glorys lofty thrill again,
Till Gsbriel's trump shall sound to summon
Death
10 HidIsndl hil his tleepluR drInler up
To joi n the standard of the King of Kings.
We pay these tributes to this dust, because
There is a two-fold nature in ourselves,
And whilst our brief existence doth depend
On matters laws which work through constant
change
And knead us with this common element,
We have conceptions Of another state
In which the spirits of the dead 10 know
The judgments upon their actions here
And though Earth's multitudes all 90 one way,
And none return with tidngs from the grave
To exercise the doubts which haunt their minds.
This sense, that what men do survives themselves.
Still holds an innate mastery over us.
And when we thus approach the honorcd dead,
Whose lives were spent to forward some great
cause,
1t subjugates our base proper stiles
And shapes our thoughts TO the high end that we
May learn to live not for ourselves alone;
And thus, as flowers falling cast their seed
To drift away upon the winged winds
And spring and bloom again in other soils,
The good, the brave, when harvested by Death,
From glory's field, bequeath their worth to us,
That it may find place in other hearts
To live again. and gladden. all mankind
That lofty patriotism which did move
Our sturdy Northern yeomanry L exchange
Their implements of toll for brands of war,
And pour their blood like sacrificial wine
Upon hundred fields, to uphold the law
And win sweet peace to cast her smiles again
Upon the land they loved, was but the fruit
OF that heroic stock from which they sprang,
And in their deeds tn spirit OF the fathers
Lived again; from those stern old Puritans,
Who, in their hate Of tyrants and of kings.
The elements and wilderness did brave
To SOW fair Freedoms seed round Plymouth Rock;
To they-who In their weakness, counseling
With wisdom to defend that liberty,
And learning first the conquest Of themselves
And all Of those dividing jeaOusies
Which make mankind ambitions easy prey
Did form that Union OF these Sovereign States
Which bore the Stars and Stripes from Lexington
To Yorktown's Heights, and crowning victory,
And in these sacred rites performed for thee
Who for that Union died, that spirit speaks,
To show that still 1t lives.
Was theirs, and theirs the martyrs glorious
crown.
The fruite Of that great war In which they fell
By brothers hands, belong to all mankind.
And as the seasons gliding smoothly on,
With peace, prosperity and honor blessed,
Heal over all its wounds, the thought that this.
Their native land. is now all Freedoms own,
Within the limits Of whose broad domain
No human slave can toll, no tyrant reign.
Touching that chord which in mans heart re-
spends
Until his country's glory as his own,
Shall cause the vanqushed to rejoice with US
That to the Right God gave Victory.
Since Christ himself has said there Is more Joy
Over one wanderer to the fold restored
Than for ninety and nine that have never strayed,
Remembering that their high sacrifice
Was born of Love, and that our brothers died
But to maintain the right and conquer peace,
That their rich blood may not have flowed In vain.
Living our lives to honor most the dead,
We will unite the white rose with the red"