| |
| WHEN falls the soldier brave | |
| Dead—at the feet of wrong,— | |
| The poet sings, and guards his grave | |
| With sentinels of song. | |
| |
| Songs, march! he gives command, | 5 |
| Keep faithful watch and true; | |
| The living and dead of the Conquered Land | |
| Have now no guards save you. | |
| |
| Grave Ballads! mark ye well! | |
| Thrice holy is your trust! | 10 |
| Go! halt! by the fields where warriors fell, | |
| Rest arms! and guard their dust. | |
| |
| List, Songs! your watch is long! | |
| The soldiers’ guard was brief, | |
| Whilst right is right, and wrong is wrong, | 15 |
| Ye may not seek relief. | |
| |
| Go! wearing the gray of grief! | |
| Go! watch o’er the Dead in Gray! | |
| Go guard the private and guard the chief, | |
| And sentinel their clay! | 20 |
| |
| And the songs, in stately rhyme, | |
| And with softly sounding tread, | |
| Go forth, to watch for a time—a time, | |
| Where sleep the Deathless Dead. | |
| |
| And the songs, like funeral dirge, | 25 |
| In music soft and low, | |
| Sing round the graves,—whilst not tears surge | |
| From hearts that are homes of woe. | |
| |
| What though no sculptured shaft | |
| Immortalize each brave? | 30 |
| What though no monument epitaphed | |
| Be built above each grave? | |
| |
| When marble wears away, | |
| And monuments are dust,— | |
| The songs that guard our soldiers’ clay | 35 |
| Will still fulfil their trust. | |
| |
| With lifted head, and steady tread, | |
| Like stars that guard the skies, | |
| Go watch each bed, where rest the dead, | |
| Brave Songs! with sleepless eyes. | 40 |
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