No More Learning

Kindle with thy green flame the stricken trees,
And fire the rose's many-petaled cup,
Let bough and branch with quickening life-blood swell--
But Death shall touch his spirit with a life
That knows not years or seasons. Oh, how small
Thy little hour of bloom! Thy leaves shall fall,
And be the sport of winter winds at strife;
But he has taken on eternity.
Yea, of how much this Death doth set him free! --
Now are we one to love him, once again.
The tie that bound him to our bitterest pain
Draws him more close to Love and Memory.

O Spring, with all thy sweetheart frolics, say,
Hast thou remembrance of those earlier springs
When we wept answer to the laughing day,
And turned aside from green and gracious things?

There was a sound of weeping over all--
Mothers uncomforted, for their sons were not;
And there was crueler silence: tears grew hot
In the true eyes that would not let them fall.

Up from the South came a great wave of sorrow
That drowned our hearthstones, splashed with blood our
sills;
To-day, that spared, made terrible To-morrow
With thick presentiment of coming ills.
Only we knew the Right--but oh, how strong,
How pitiless, how insatiable the Wrong!

And then the quivering sword-hilt found a hand
That knew not how to falter or grow weak;
And we looked on, from end to end the land,
And felt the heart spring up, and rise afresh
The blood of courage to the whitened cheek,
And fire of battle thrill the numbing flesh.
Ay, there was death, and pain, and dear ones missed,
And lips forever to grow pale unkissed;
But lo, the man was here, and this was he;
And at his hands Faith gave us victory.

Spring, thy poor life, that mocks his body's death,
Is but a candle's flame, a flower's breath.
He lives in days that suffering made dear
Beyond all garnered beauty of the year.
He lives in all of us that shall outlive

The sensuous things that paltry time can give.
This Spring the spirit of his broken age
Across the threshold of its anguish stole--
All of him that was noble, fearless, sage,
Lives in his loved nation's strengthened soul.





THE BURIAL OF SHERMAN

RICHARD WATSON GILDER

[Sidenote: 1820, 1891]
_Sherman died on January 14. His funeral took place two days
later. The statue by Saint Gaudens was unveiled in New York in
1903. _

Glory and honor and fame and everlasting laudation
For our captains who loved not war, but fought for
the life of the nation;
Who knew that, in all the land, one slave meant strife, not
peace;
Who fought for freedom, not glory; made war that war might
cease.

Glory and honor and fame; the beating of muffled drums;
The wailing funeral dirge, as the flag-wrapt coffin comes.
Fame and honor and glory, and joy for a noble soul;
For a full and splendid life, and laurelled rest at the goal.

Glory and honor and fame; the pomp that a soldier prizes;
The league-long waving line as the marching falls and rises;
Rumbling of caissons and guns; the clatter of horses' feet,
And a million awe-struck faces far down the waiting street.

But better than martial woe, and the pageant of civic sorrow;
Better than praise of to-day, or the statue we build to-morrow;
Better than honor and glory, and History's iron pen,
Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men.





THE MEN BEHIND THE GUNS

JOHN JEROME ROONEY

[Sidenote: 1898]
_The high quality of American marksmanship was never more
conclusively shown than in the battle of Santiago. _

A cheer and salute for the Admiral, and here's to the
Captain bold,
And never forget the Commodore's debt when the
deeds of might are told!
They stand to the deck through the battle's wreck when the
great shells roar and screech--
And never they fear when the foe is near to practise what they
preach:
But off with your hat and three times three for Columbia's
true-blue sons,
The men below who batter the foe--the men behind the guns!

Oh, light and merry of heart are they when they swing into
port once more,
When, with more than enough of the "greenbacked stuff,"
they start for their leave-o'-shore;
And you'd think, perhaps, that the blue-bloused chaps who
loll along the street
Are a tender bit, with salt on it, for some fierce "mustache"
to eat--
Some warrior bold, with straps of gold, who dazzles and fairly
stuns
The modest worth of the sailor boys--the lads who serve the
guns.

But say not a word till the shot is heard that tells that the
fight is on,
Till the long, deep roar grows more and more from the ships
of "Yank" and "Don,"
Till over the deep the tempests sweep of fire and bursting shell,
And the very air is a mad Despair in the throes of a living hell;
Then down, deep down, in the mighty ship, unseen by the
midday suns,
You'll find the chaps who are giving the raps--the men behind
the guns!

Oh, well they know how the cyclones blow that they loose
from their cloud of death,
And they know is heard the thunder-word their fierce ten-incher
saith!
The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with
the great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches
for his spoil--
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind
the guns!