The National tribune., 1908-05-21
The Long Years,

Where the last Rear Guard is lying
The Long Years.
(By Thomas Bailey Aldrich.)
The long years come and go
And the Past,
The sorrowful, splendid Past,
With its glory and it's woe,
Seems never to have been.
The bugle's taunting blast
Has died away by Southern ford and
The mock-bird sings unfrightened in its
dell;
The ensanguined stream flows free of
stain;
Where once the kissing death-bolt fell,
And all along the artillery's level lines
Leapt flames of hell,
The planter smiles upon the sprouting
grain,
And tends his vines
Seems never to have been?
o, somber days and grand,
How ye crowd back again,
Seeing our heroes graves are green
BY the Potomac and the Cumberland,
And in the hush of many a lonely glen!
The long years come, but they
Come not again!
Thru vapors dense and gray
Steals back the May,
But they come not again
Swept by the battles fiery breath
Down unknown ways of death.
How can our fancies help but go
Out from this realm of mist and rain,
Out from this realm of sleet and snow,
When the first Southern violets blow ?
While yet the year is young
Many garland shall be hung
In rdn nf hn
On obeliSk and urn
Shall the lilac's purple burn,
And the wild-rose leaves be shed.
And afar in the woodland ways,
Thru the rustic church-yard gate
Matrons and maidens shall pass,
Striplings and white-haired men.
And, spreading aside the grass,
Linger at name and date,
Remembering old, old days!
And the lettering on each stone
Where the mould's green breath has
blown
Tears shall wash clear again.
The Unknown Graves.
But far away to the South, in the sui
try, stricken land
On the banks of turbid streams gurgling
among their reeds,
BY many a dread morass, where the
long-necked pelican feeds,
By many a dark bayou, and binding
dune of sand, ...r
BY many cypress swamp where the
cayman seeks its prey,
In many moss-hung wood, the twi-
lights haunt by day,
And down where the lands parched lip
drinks at the salt sea-waves, p
And the ghostly sails glide by-there
are piteous, name1ess graves.
Their names no tongue may tell,
Buried there where they fell,
The bravest of our braves!
Never sweetheart, or friend,
Wan, pale mother, or bride,
Over these mounds shall bend,
Tenderly putting aside
The unremembering grass!
Never the votive wreath,
Never tear, alas!
How can our fancies help but GO
Out from this realm Of mist and rain,
Out from this realm of sleet and snow,
When the first Southern violets blow?
How must our thought bend over them,
Blessing the flowers that cover them
Piteous, nameless graves!
They Shall Live Again. i
All, but the life they gave 7sn'
Is not shut in the grave;
The valorous spirits freed
Live IN the vital Oeeu!
Marble shall crumble to dust, ma
Plinth of bronze and of stone,
Carved escutcheon and crest
Silently, one by one, >ii
The sculptured lilies fall;
Softly the tooth of the rust
Gnaws thru the braZen shield:
Broken, and covered with stains,
The crossed stone swords must yield;
Mined by the frost and the drouth,
Smitten by East and West.
Down comes column and ALI
But the great deed remains.
One as Before.
When we remember how they died
In dark ravine and on the mountain
side,
town,
Upon the gunboat's splintered deck.
And where the iron ships went down
How their dear lives were spent,
In the crushed and Redeemed wreck,
BY lone lagoons and streams,
In the weary hospital-tent,
In the cockpits crowded hive
How they languished and died
In the black stockades-it seems
Ignoble to be alivei
Tears will well to our eyes,
And the bitter doubt will rise
But hush, for the strife is done,
Forgiven are wound and scar;
The fight was fought and won
Long since on sea and shore,
And every scattered star
Set in the blue once more;
We are one as before,
With the blot from our 'scutcheon gone
Rest.
SO let our heroes rest
Upon your sunny breast;
Keep them, oh, South, our tender
hearts and true,
Keep them, oh, South, and learn TO hold
them dear
From year to year!
Nauar foroet