Classic Poem

1

No matter how the strife begins
Soldiers who fall the battle wins
Left dead beside his thundering gun
That corpse the battle field has won
Though on the turf he ends his days
It blossoms with his countrys praise
In fireside hopes and infants smiles
He fell and fame rewards his toils

2

The stars of earth white daisies shade
The greensward where his bones are laid
Above his bones his blood was spilt
His sword rusts broken to the hilt
His gun his bretheren wheeled away
Belched fire and thunder in the fray
Beneath the turf his ashes rest
By every patriots wishes blest

3

His love was to his country true
His fate is wept by mornings dew
And though his hopes were warm in vain
To see his childrens smiles again
That by the door still sit and play
While he lies rotting in the clay
The mother o'er the youngest sighs
And crops the daisey where he lies

4

Upon his cold and stubborn breast
The speckled lark has built her nest
The hare makes there her hiding form
Just where the heart-blood trickled warm
And stained the daisies round the place
Where he fell dead and left no trace
Yet there he fell and there he sleeps
Where wild thyme every morning weeps