Thy country turns once more to kiss thy youthful brow,
And takes thee gently, gently to her breast,
And whispers lovingly, ‘God bless thee—bless thee now,
My darling, thou shalt rest!’
My countrymen, one and all,—if enemies in the dark days of estrangement, brothers now and forever,—let us rejoice that under God we have a reunited country, that the Union was preserved, that Liberty, crowned and sceptered, sits enthroned in the constitution; and with our eyes fixed on the one and only banner of the loyal heart, let us reverently resolve to show ourselves in some measure worthy of our ancestors and our brethren who fought and died to make this blessed land the home of freedom, free lips and free hands, forever.
The dead soldiers of the republic, the heroes of the Revolution, the heroes of 1812, the heroes of 1848, the heroes of 1861, the heroes of 1898,—they sleep in glory. But what of the living? O soldiers of the republic, wheresoe’er you are to-night, on land or sea, in frigid north or torrid south, on frontier guarding the outposts of civilization, or in far Luzon defending with sleepless vigilance the flag of our hearts, God bless you and keep you. Be of good cheer. Your country believes in you and loves you. If you return, she will clasp you close to her heart and bestow on you the rewards of peace; if you fall fighting her battles, she will be mother to your children and treasure you as she treasures those who preserved the flag you have lifted and hold on high.
My countrymen, the heroes of every battlefield of the republic—from Bunker Hill to Santiago—look down to-night from their portals of eternal light and beseech us to be true to the principles in vindication of which they died. Nay, more: from every land made sacred by heroism, from every dungeon of agony and death where truth has suffered on the rack for conscience’ sake, from Marathon and Thermopylæ, from Runnymede and Bannockburn, from the graves of Kosciusko and Hampden, from the scaffolds of Sidney and Emmet, comes a voice beseeching us to be faithful to our mission, to guard jealously the citadel of Liberty, and to vindicate by our wisdom and righteousness and justice the holy cause of Freedom.
Oh! can we stand unmoved when thus addressed? Let us heed these warning voices and hearken to these solemn admonitions, and here and now, on this Memorial Day, with all the memories and lessons of the past fresh in our hearts, let us renew our devotion and reaffirm our allegiance to the cause of Liberty and Union, let us rededicate and reconsecrate ourselves to the service of our Country.
How shall we fittingly commemorate the honored dead? When Greece was threatened by the Persian army, Athens sent out a handful of her bravest sons to meet the myriad hosts of Darius. Oh! the intrepid courage, the sublime patriotism, of that Grecian band as they advanced across the plain of Marathon with leveled spears to fall upon the heathen horde that came to plunder and destroy. To commemorate the splendid victory of Miltiades over Darius, of enlightened civilization over brutish barbarism, the Athenians erected a mound on that historic plain, and as a special and the highest mark of honor buried their heroes where they had fallen. The light of Athens has gone out forever; her glory has departed, never to return; her power has vanished, never to be regained; the voice of her sublime philosophers and peerless orators is heard no more; the language of Homer and Demosthenes lives only in immortal type, the priceless heritage of the human race; the matchless art of Phidias and Praxiteles is of the past, and the unapproached masterpieces of the Parthenon have been eaten away by the gnawing tooth of irreverent time; a melancholy gloom of utter desolation and departed splendor broods over the “City of the Violet Crown,” the once first and proudest city in the world. But, after a lapse of more than twenty centuries,—centuries which have seen the death of the old and the birth of the new civilizations, the rise and fall of dynasties, the creation and decay of empires,—after a lapse of more than twenty centuries the earthen mound at Marathon still remains, clad to-day in the flowers of spring, an eternal witness to the valor and heroism of Athens, a solemn reminder that those who die in defense of Liberty and Country shall not perish from the memory of men.
Let the monument to our heroes be the land they saved, domed and canopied by the heavens that smiled upon their cause. For so long as the sun in his coming kisses and glorifies that blessed banner, or, sinking, burnishes our mountain tops with crimson gold; so long as yonder waves roll inward to break and die upon the shore; so long as the American heart beats to the transports of a true and lofty patriotism, or man has aspirations of light and liberty; so long as the nation lives; so long as the flag of Washington and Lincoln is in the sky,—even so long will our heroes’ fame survive and be an inspiration to the Union’s sons forever and forever.