Soldiers of the light

by Helen Gray Cone

Served all his years a Soldier of the Light:

From those first days when the brave gentle boy,

In passion of service for the land he loved,

Stood by the thunderous guns of Gettysburg,

To those last days of service not less true

In the loud streets and swarming human hives,

The clangor and flare, and all the civic stress

Of his beloved city,—his and ours,

Where such as he may rear the City of Light.