THE THIRTIETH OF MAY.
[Uncle John in the Cemetery, after the Decoration]
These are not all!
Here by the wall
Is the grave of one who died in the war,
Though her body hadn’t a wound nor scar.
Her hope and heart was broken, when
In a mass o’ men
Her lover fell in a pool of gore
With the flag he bore.
Her life and her love together fled
When he was dead.
Any vi’lets left, girls? Let them fall
Here by the wall.
These are not all!
Go back, and call
The boys that carry the evergreen.
Here is a grave you men hain’t seen.
It’s old man Brown’s. His heart clean broke
’Most as if he was women-folk.
He had five sons—his wife was dead—
Nothin’ could keep ’em to home, he said.
An’ every last one o’ that whole lot
Had to get shot!
Th’ old man hadn’t no grit, no pride—
Jest up and died!
Lay the evergreen softly down
Over the grave of old man Brown.
These are not all!
Let lilies fall
Here on this wee small grave in the shade.
I can remember the day we laid
The Captain’s baby in this green spot.
Cap. he was shot.
An’ some fool neighbor made haste to tell
The Captain’s widder the news, and—well,
Down she went in a faint—jest fell!
And it killed the baby. She lived on,
Health and reason forever gone.
Lay lilies here.
Was that a tear?—
I went to the war myself that year.
Put roses here.
This grave is dear—
She was my sister. The truest heart,
Always ready to do her part.
Gave up her son
When the first gun
Thundered at Sumter! She had but one.
An’ she died, when
(With stronger men)
He starved to death in a prison pen.
(The boy she had fed, and clothed, and kissed,
An’ done for, so that he hardly missed
His father—dead when he was a child.)
She never smiled.
She loved red roses when we was small;
Here let them fall.
We honor the soldiers; but they ain’t all!
Mrs. E. M. Adams.
Mound City, Kansas.