I
Soldiers and saviours of the homes we love;
Heroes and patriots who marched away,
And who marched back, and who marched on above—
All—all are here to-day!
By the dear cause you fought for—you are here;
At summons of bugle, and the drum
Whose palpitating syllables were ne'er
More musical, you come!
Here—by the stars that bloom in fields of blue,
And by the bird above with shielding wings;
And by the flag that floats out over you,
With silken beckonings—
Ay, here beneath its folds are gathered all
Who warred unscathed for blessings that it gave—
Still blessed its champion, though it but fall
A shadow on his grave!
II
We greet you, Victors, as in vast array
You gather from the scenes of strife and death—
From spectral fortress walls where curls away
The cannon's latest breath.
We greet you—from the crumbling battlements
Where once again the old flag feels the breeze
Stroke out its tattered stripes and smooth its rents
With rippling ecstasies.
From living tombs where every hope seemed lost—
With famine quarantined by bristling guns—
The prison pens—the guards—the "dead-line" crossed
By—riddled skeletons!
From furrowed plains, sown thick with bursting shells—
From mountain gorge, and toppling crags o'erhead—
From wards of pestilential hospitals,
And trenches of the dead.