What do we owe our friends? Kind thoughts and pleasant cheer
Born of affection tender and sincere,
And ready service, the efficient seal
Of earnest zeal.
What do we owe our friends? We owe them love, not fear,
Love that the closer clings when storms are near,
Love that shall speak in eye, in voice, in hand,
And steadfast stand.
MEMORIAL DAY.
[Dedicated to the G. A. R. Read at Huntington Hall.]
With muffled drum, with banners furled, with martial step and slow,
Oh, gather by the sacred dust, the dust that lies below;
Oh, gather by the sacred dust of comrades loyal, true,
Wave over them thy benison, the red, the white, the blue.
May this fair Union stand complete, a monument divine
To those who sacrificed their lives at freedom’s holy shrine;
Upon each thirtieth of May with solemn tread we come,
And pay them tender tribute to the throbbing of the drum.
We marched with them, we fought with them, our bed the sullen sod,
With not a star above us and without a hope, save God;
’Mid cannon’s roar, the halt, the dash, the victory, retreat,
We saw them falling ’round us as the sickle fells the wheat.
Oh, dark the days that followed fast on Baltimore, Bull Run,
Beneath the torrid fierceness of a blazing southern sun;
With Butler in his bold campaigns, with Sherman by the sea,
We shoulder stood to shoulder in the battle of the free.
And ever through the living past there flows a tender vein,
To stir the heart and open wounds that bleed and bleed again,
As tearful eyes and empty arms to death itself appealed,
Alas for those who sadly knelt on Desolation’s field!