No pyramids set off his memories,
But tie eternal substance of his greatness;
To which I leave him.
But of the rank and file, of the unknown dead, what can be said? Sleep on, O humble soldier boy, sleep on! No more shall the midnight attack, the fierce charge, or the bugle-call to arms rouse thee from thy rest. Sleep on in thy lowly sepulcher, guarded by thy country’s tenderest love and pillowed on her grateful heart. Whether it be beneath polished marble and sculptured alabaster reared by the hands of affection, or beneath the green sod watered by tears of love; whether it be beneath rich, fragrant flowers blooming in perennial freshness and cared for by dear ones left behind, or in the lonely, pathless woods where in darkness and thick gloom you laid down your life; whether it be in fertile valley where your life blood reddened the grass of the meadow, or in the intrenchment of death, facing the pitiless storm of shot and shell; whether it be in the prison-pen, where your heart-throbs grew faint, but your undying love for the Stars and Stripes could not be seduced into deserting your country, or in sultry mountain-passes where you wearied of the march, and, fever-stricken, fell down to die,—wheresoever it be, on land or in ocean depth, O humble soldier boy, sleep on! Thy cause was liberty; thy purpose, Union; thy object, a nation purged and purified of slavery. Thy great deeds are thy eternal monument. Written on the nation’s heart and in the everlasting Book of Life thy name shall live forevermore, fadeless to eternity.
Oh, the victory, the victory
Belongs to thee!
God ever keeps the brightest crown for such as thou.
He gives it now to thee.
Oh, young and brave, and early and thrice blest!
Thrice, thrice, thrice blest!