Classic Poem

Ay, lay them to rest on the prairie, on the spot where for honor they fell,
The shout of the savage their requiem, the hiss of the rifle their knell.

For what quiet and sheltered God's air would they barter that stained desert sod
Where at His trumpet summons of duty they gave back their souls to their God?

" Private, Number One Company, shot through the heart. First to fall. " Words immortal, sublime
In their teaching, their power to move, and their pathos to plead, for all time.

Shall we blench where they led? Shall we falter where they at such cost won their crown?
" Greater love hath no man — " we all know it; they obeyed it and laid their lives down.

" Friends " then, martyrs now, heroes both ways, they bequeath us their strength for our parts;
Their example their fittest memorial, their epitaphs deep in our hearts.

From those graves on the far blood-stained prairie, on the field where their battle was done,
They shall speak to our souls, and new fire through the veins of our patriots shall run.

Wail orphans — weep sisters — look upward, sad mothers and desolate wives;
But mourn not as those without comfort the loss of the sanctified lives.

Can you mourn unconsoled for their taking, though your heads may in anguish be bowed,
With a nation's tears falling above them, their country's flag draped for their shroud?

As the blood of the martyr enfruitens his creed, so the hero sows peace,
And the reaping of war's deadly harvest is the earnest his havoc shall cease.

If the seed sown in blood you must water with tears, shrink not back from the cost;
What they gave ungrudging for honor you have lent to your country, not lost.

And forgive us, who bear not your burden of pain and who share not your pride,
If we grudge you your glory of giving in the cause where your heroes have died.