85. our hero-dead.
by Charles Boynton Howell.
From their labors nobly done,From their battles bravely won,
'Neath the earth's cold sod they lie
Resting calmly, silently.
Sleep their sacred patriot forms,
Where war's tempests and alarms
Cannot reach them — cannot smite
Them to earth in camp or fight.
Some passed from the realms of life
In the battle's sanguine strife,
Smitten down, in carnage, low
By the hand of dastard foe;
Who would pluck the beaming stars
From our flag, invoking Mars
To look on their deeds of blood
With the mien of gratitude.
Mourners, in whose every heart
There has entered sorrow's dart,
Sorrow for the loved ones gone
To the confines of the tomb--
Seek the graves of warriors slain
On the battle's gory plain,
Or sent to the realms of death
By disease's fatal breath.
Sacrificing self they fought
That the land, with treason fraught,
Might rise, phoenix-like, again
From her agonizing pain;
That the traitorous hordes that aim
At their country's name and fame,
Might be conquered in the fray,
And insure us triumph's day.
Alexander, brave and bold,
In the chivalrous days of old,
Did not nobler deeds perform
In the stirring battle-storm,
On Europa's bloody soil,
Than our hardy sons of toil,
Have, when so intrepidly
Battling for our liberty.
Nor did brave Leonidas--
When was stormed the bloody pass
At old-time Thermopyloe--
Strike with nobler gallantry
With his dauntless Spartan band,
Fighting for their native land,
Than Columbia's sons of Mars,
Warring for the Stripes and Stars.
Honor to the hero-slain!
They who for their country's gain,
In the nation's gloomy night,
Left their homes and firesides bright;
So that this, our favored land,
May again take up her stand
In the van of nations, where
She e'er stood through peace and war.
When war's clarion blast shall cease
And the swift-winged bird of peace,
Soaring over hill and glen,
Bears the olive-branch again--
Will these slumbering warriors be,
In their country's memory,
Patriots true and heroes tried,
Who for freedom nobly died!
Ann arbor, January, 1864.
