List, songs! your watch is long,
The soldiers' guard was brief;
Whilst right is right, and wrong is wrong,
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!
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,
In music soft and low,
Sing round the graves, whilst hot tears surge
From hearts that are homes of woe.
What tho' no sculptured shaft
Immortalize each brave?
What tho' no monument epitaphed
Be built above each grave?
When marble wears away
And monuments are dust,
The songs that guard our soldiers' clay
Will still fulfil their trust.
With lifted head and stately tread,
Like stars that guard the skies,
Go watch each bed where rest the dead,
Brave songs, with sleepless eyes.
* * * * *
When falls the cause of Right,
The poet grasps his pen,
And in gleaming letters of living light
Transmits the truth to men.
Go, songs! he says who sings;
Go! tell the world this tale;
Bear it afar on your tireless wings:
The Right will yet prevail.