Ah! how they answered let the ages tell, For they shall guard the sacred story well! Green grows the grass to-day on many a battle-field; War’s dread alarms are o’er; its scars are healed; Its bitter agony has found surcease; A re-united land clasps hands in peace. But, oh! ye blessed dead, whose graves are strown From where our forests make perpetual moan, To those far shores where smiling Southern seas Give back soft murmurs to the fragrant breeze— Oh! ye who drained for us the bitter cup, Think ye we can forget what ye have offered up? The years will come and go, and other centuries die, And generation after generation lie Down in the dust; but, long as stars shall shine, Long as Vermont’s green hills shall bear the pine, As long as Killington shall proudly lift Its lofty peak above the storm-cloud’s rift, Or Mansfield hail the blue, o’erarching skies, Or fair Mount Anthony in grandeur rise, So long shall live the deeds that ye have done, So deathless be the glory ye have won!
XI.
Not with exultant joy And pride without alloy, Did the twin Centuries rejoice when all was o’er. What though the Nation rose Triumphant o’er its foes? What though the State had gained The meed of faith unstained? Their mighty hearts remembered the dead that came no more! Remembered all the losses, The weary, weary crosses, Remembered earth was poorer for the blood that had been shed, And knew that it was sadder for the story it had read! So, clasping hands with somewhat saddened mien, And eyes uplifted to the Great Unseen That rules alike o’er Centuries and men, Onward they walked serenely toward—the End!
XII.
One reached it last year. Ye remember well— The wondrous tale there is no need to tell— How the whole world bowed down beside its bier; How all the Nations came, from far or near, Heaping their treasures on its mighty pall— Never had kingliest king such funeral! Old Asia rose, and, girding her in haste, Swept in her jewelled robes across the waste, And called to Egypt lying prone and hid Where waits the Sphinx beside the pyramid; Fair Europe came with overflowing hands, Bearing the riches of her many lands; Dark Afric, laden with her virgin gold, Yet laden deeper with her woes untold; Japan and China in grotesque array, And all the enchanted islands of Cathay!
XIII.
To-day the other dies. It walked in humbler guise, Nor stood where all men’s eyes Were fixed upon it. Earth may not pause to lay A wreath upon its bier, Nor the world heed to-day Our dead that lieth here!
Yet well they loved each other— It and its greater brother. To loftiest stature grown, Each earned its own renown; Each sought of Time a crown, And each has won it;
XIV.
But what to us are Centuries dead, And rolling Years forever fled, Compared with thee, O grand and fair Vermont—our Goddess-mother? Strong with the strength of thy verdant hills, Fresh with the freshness of mountain-rills, Pure as the breath of the fragrant pine, Glad with the gladness of youth divine, Serenely thou sittest throned to-day Where the free winds that round thee play Rejoice in thy waves of sun-bright hair, O thou, our glorious mother! Rejoice in thy beautiful strength and say Earth holds not such another! Thou art not old with thy hundred years, Nor worn with toil, or care, or tears: But all the glow of the summer-time Is thine to-day in thy glorious prime! Thy brow is fair as the winter-snows, With a stately calm in its still repose; While the breath of the rose the wild bee sips, Half-mad with joy, cannot eclipse The marvellous sweetness of thy lips; And the deepest blue of the laughing skies Hides in the depths of thy fearless eyes, Gazing afar over land and sea Wherever thy wandering children be! Fold on fold, Over thy form of grandest mould Floweth thy robe of forest green, Now light, now dark, in its emerald sheen. Its broidered hem is of wild flowers rare, With feathery fern-fronds light as air Fringing its borders. In thy hair Sprays of the pink arbutus twine, And the curling rings of the wild grape vine. Thy girdle is woven of silver streams; Its clasp with the opaline lustre gleams Of a lake asleep in the sunset beams; And, half concealing And half revealing, Floats over all a veil of mist Pale-tinted with rose and amethyst!