Meade County news., 1917-05-24
ON MEMORIAL DAY
Time for Patriotic Thoughts as
We StreW Flowers Over the
Graves of Our Heroes.

4 N
~ snowballs, the peonies and 9th
er flowers with which our
yards abound at this time of the year,
and reverently laid them on the
graves of our soldier dead. 1t has
been a year of stress and storm for
many of us, year of war and rumors
of war in the land. We do we'll to put
aside the duties Of the season for
few hours and go out to the cemetery,
where we may reflect on the great sac
rifice of the heroes and heroines buried
there, writes James M. Pierce in the
Iowa Homestead.
Memorial day is to me one Of the
saddest and lonellest days of the whole
year. / remember the years which
have gone; the father who left the
lying today in an unknown grave in
the sunny Southland. remember the
uncles who likewise gave up their lives
that this nation might be free and
united. / remember the struggles and
the sacrifices Of my mother and sisters,
and as l remember them the tears well
from my eyes and loneliness comes
down around me and upon me, like
shades of night. Such goodly com
pany Of brave young men marched
forth, dropping 'plOw-lines and ledger,
with flies and drums qulckening their
pulses and their steps, and so few
returned. And Of that pitiful handful
which came back, how few we have
left with us today! The ranks Of
those who don the old and threadworn
uniform to march out to the cemetery
and honor their fallen comrades are
thinning rapidly; but a few more years
and there will be none left among us.
Shall we not honor them while they
are yet here? The poet was inspired,
believe, when he wrote these lines:
It's lonesome, sort O. lonesome, it's a Sun
d'y-day to me,
1t pears-lke, more'n any day l nearly
ever see
Yit, with the Stars and Stripes above, a.
futterin in the air.
On ev'ry soldiers grave I'd love to lay a
lily there.
Gone are the days when there was
North or South, when there was divi-
sion in our beloved land. Today we
are united as never before, and as we
strew our flowers and reverently lay
our wreaths we do not think of wheth-
er the one we revere wore the blue or
the gray; he was hero and he fought
for what he believed to be right. Let
me give you three Of the stanzas Of
poem l love that you may read them
over, at your leisure:
So when the summer calleth,
On forest and field Of grain
With an equal mumur falleth
The cooling drip of rain
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Wet with the rain the Blue:
Wet with the rain the Gray.
Sadly, but not with upbraidlng,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading
No braver battle was won;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue
Under the garlands, the Gray.
No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding river be red; Il
They Danish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our
dead.
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.
Could we do better than to read
these verses aloud, or teach one of the
children to speak them at school, or
ask that they be read at whatever ex-
ercises may be held in our cemeteries?
We have been drawn together-we of
the North and the South, we of the
farm and of the clty-wlthin the past
year, in the face of common danger,
as never before. Shall we forget that
there ever existed dividing lines, and
unite, all together in being true-blue
Americans, dedicated to one another's
welfare and prosperity, the greatest,
most closely knit nation the sun ever
shone on?