The Silent Victors
MAY 30, 1878,
Dying for victory, cheer on cheer
Thundered on his eager ear.
--CHARLES L. HOLSTEIN.
I
Deep, tender, firm and true, the Nation's heart
Throbs for her gallant heroes passed away,
Who in grim Battle's drama played their part,
And slumber here to-day.--
Warm hearts that beat their lives out at the shrine
Of Freedom, while our country held its breath
As brave battalions wheeled themselves in line
And marched upon their death:
When Freedom's Flag, its natal wounds scarce healed,
Was torn from peaceful winds and flung again
To shudder in the storm of battle-field--
The elements of men,--
When every star that glittered was a mark
For Treason's ball, and every rippling bar
Of red and white was sullied with the dark
And purple stain of war:
When angry guns, like famished beasts of prey,
Were howling o'er their gory feast of lives,
And sending dismal echoes far away
To mothers, maids, and wives:--
The mother, kneeling in the empty night,
With pleading hands uplifted for the son
Who, even as she prayed, had fought the fight--
The victory had won:
The wife, with trembling hand that wrote to say
The babe was waiting for the sire's caress--
The letter meeting that upon the way,--
The babe was fatherless:
The maiden, with her lips, in fancy, pressed
Against the brow once dewy with her breath,
Now lying numb, unknown, and uncaressed
Save by the dews of death.
II
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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