COMMENDATION.
Shall we stand blindly commending person or place?
Wide is the margin that lies between feeling and face,
Life is steadily tending to joy or despair,
What for the bliss of the future, will not a soul dare?
Daily we seek to move forward fast as we can
Giving kind thought to the welfare of each brother man,
Though the bright sunshine is hidden, clouds will uproll
Bidding the glory of heaven transfigure the soul.
TRIED AND TRUE.
Loyal freemen, tried and true,
Gallantly they stand,
With the sacrifice in view
Battling for our land.
Battling for her highest good,
Battling for her life;
Even as their fathers stood
Ready for the strife.
Where the smoke of conflict clung
Like a dreary pall,
There was work for old and young
Work for one and all.
Work that stirred the nation’s heart
For the cannon’s boom
Heralded the hero’s part
In rebellion’s doom.
At the front ’mid shot and shell,
Marching side by side;
How the dead and wounded fell,
Soldiers true and tried.
Fathers, brothers, husbands, sons,
Harkened to one voice,
Freedom, speaking through her guns,
Bidding men rejoice.