Classic Poem

When men forsook their shops and homes, and stood with troubled faces
From morn till night, from night till morn, in dusty market spaces;
When women watched beside their babes in anguish half resisted,
Until the husky message came: " God keep you, I've enlisted! "
When all day long the drums were rolled in hateful exultation,
And fife and bugle stung with pain the pulses of the Nation;
When woman's hand formed every star that flashed on field of glory,
And woman's tears were stitched along each stripe in jeweled story, —

What said we then? " Go forth, brave hearts! Go where the bullets rattle!
For us to plan, for us to pray, for you to toil and battle!
Ours to uphold, yours to defend, the compact none can sever;
And sacred be your name and fame, forever and forever!"

When charge and trench gave up their dead, and loathsome Southern prison;
When on the march the hidden shot took aim with swift precision;
When every whitewashed ward put out the light of some lone dwelling,
And every lumbering ambulance some dying plaint was telling;
When fathers took their papers up with sense of evil presage,
And mothers tore with stifling sobs the wrap of some swift message;
When prone the people lay before their God with sins uncovered,
And with overshadowing awfulness the blackwinged angel hovered, —

What said we then? " Stand firm, brave hearts! stand where the bullets, crashing ,
Cut down your comrades as the sheaves go down before the threshing!
A Nation pleads with lifted hands, " Give up the Union, never!"
And yours the glory that abides, forever and forever! "

When bronzed and scarred and tattered sore, the ranks of dusty blue
Came up from Appomattox with their banners riddled through,
An hundred for a thousand, and by tens where fifties went,
With their armless sleeves and crutches showing where the balls were spent;
When they stacked their trusty rifles and their knapsacks flung aside,
And made known their comrades' message to loved ones ere they died,
When the Nation breathed more freely than for ten long years before,
Though crape hung, freshly knotted, upon many a muffled door, —
What said we then? " O tried and true who live to rise and rally ,
O tried and true who sleep so well by storied stream and valley!
We bind this debt upon our hearts, which time cannot dissever,
To guard your name and shield your fame, forever and forever! "

When fort and rifle-pit are brought unto a common level,
And where the soldier's blood ran red, the long wild-grasses revel;
When year by year the ranks go down that thrilled to deeds of glory,
And year by year the ear grows cold to patriotic story;
When men forget, in stocks and trade and fevered speculation,
That any smote and any saved the honor of the Nation;
When policy would blot the names of hero and of battle,
And swear we never saw a foe or heard a musket rattle, —
What say we now? " O comrade hearts that still are strongly bounding ,
And comrade hearts that wake no more to catch the bugle's sounding;
As when you fought, as when you fell, your memory gladdens ever;
Our faith is wedded to your fame, forever and forever! "

No more the cartridge answers in the rifle true and trusty,
And the good sword lies neglected in its scabbard dim and rusty;
The blue and gray no longer are the colors of division,
And " Yank " and " Reb " are heard no more the nickname of derision;
The malice of the combat is, thank God, no longer cherished,
The vengeance that relents not in the breasts of all has perished,
And an infinite compassion in each loyal heart is swelling
For the vanquished in the shadows of each desolated dwelling, —
Yet say we now, as in the days of our humiliation,
As in the days when triumph crowned the armies of the Nation:
" The men who fought, the men who fell, the old flag none can sever,
Shall all be shrined in loyal hearts, forever and forever! "

O shadow-armies, bending where the roses shed to-day
Their gentle fragrance typical of all our hearts would say,
From the spires of the Atlantic to the Golden Gate sublime
Where Thomas waits his old reserves who're serving out their time!
O shadow-armies, bending where the drooping lilies weep,
With the watchers broken-hearted who slumber not nor weep!
O shadow-armies, bending from the summits of the stars,
Bearing up the flying pennons of the dear old Stripes and Stars, —
Bear witness that we keep to-day the vows that we have spoken,
In our iliads, in our anthems, in our prayers weak and broken; —
In our statues proudly rising, in the statutes none can sever,
From the records of a Union, sealed forever and forever!