No More Learning

So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead.
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.





AT THE FARRAGUT STATUE

ROBERT BRIDGES

[Sidenote: 1801, 1870]
_Farragut's statue by Saint Gaudens was unveiled in New York in
1881_

To live a hero, then to stand
In bronze serene above the city's throng;
Hero at sea, and now on land
Revered by thousands as they rush along;

If these were all the gifts of fame--
To be a shade amid alert reality,
And win a statue and a name--
How cold and cheerless immortality!

But when the sun shines in the Square,
And multitudes are swarming in the street,
Children are always gathered there,
Laughing and playing round the hero's feet.





GRANT

H. C. BUNNER

[Sidenote: 1822, 1885]
_This was written on the day of Grant's death, July 23. _

Smile on, thou new-come Spring--if on thy breeze
The breath of a great man go wavering up
And out of this world's knowledge, it is well.

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.