Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Margaret L. Woods

To the Forgotten Dead

TO the forgotten dead,

Come, let us drink in silence ere we part.

To every fervent yet resolved heart

That brought its tameless passion and its tears,

Renunciation and laborious years,

To lay the deep foundations of our race,

To rear its stately fabric overhead

And light its pinnacles with golden grace.

To the unhonored dead.

To the forgotten dead,

Whose dauntless hands were stretched to grasp the rein

Of Fate and hurl into the void again

Her thunder-hoofèd horses, rushing blind

Earthward along the courses of the wind.

Among the stars, along the wind in vain

Their souls were scattered and their blood was shed,

And nothing, nothing of them doth remain.

To the thrice-perished dead.