Classic Poem

I

Only a button to tell of his fate,
Encrusted and tarnished with rust,
Upheaved by the squirrel at his harvest time,
From the home of the sacred dust.

II

It is dimmed by its twenty years of rest,
And battered by war's hail of lead,
But it comes to us now, like an echoing lute,
From the grave of the unknown dead.

III

Like an acorn dropped from the hand of God,
Like the seal of his promise set,
It comes from the heart of the buried past,
To bid us forgive — not forget;

IV

Forgive, not forget, for the wounds of the Past,
Were cruel and deep in their sears,
And her stainless young brow in our passion of grief
Was bathed by the bitterest tears.

V

Forgive — but anon in the hurry of life,
There are dreams which the moments let fall,
And echoes that roll through the palace of Time,
Like the blast of a bugle call.

VI

Forget? There's a flash of steel in our dreams,
And the heat of the cannon's breath,
And the Gray meet Blue, and the Blue meet Gray,
In the Carnival of Death!

VII

And bayonets arch the bridge of years,
Above the surging flood,
Whose waters lash with a deep dark stain,
Whose tide is a wave of blood.

VIII

Forget? There was woe in the Southern homes,
And Rachels on bended knees,
There were prayers, and a curse, tears and a stone —
Forget there were scenes such as these?

IX

Forgive — there are dead on every field,
There are sighs for the Blue and the Gray,
And weary the hearts that yearn for them both,
Through the years that have passed away!

X

And the sunbeams play, and the shadows rest
On the soldiers' daisied bed,
But only a button, tarnished and bent,
Comes back from the unknown dead.

XI

Yet tenderly treasure the timeworn thing,
It emblems the truest and best;
It folded the Gray, once a mantle of hope,
Upon a true patriot's breast.

XII

And it comes in the springtide bloom to-day,
As we garland the white and red,
A strange sweet message of love and trust,
From the grave of the unknown dead.