Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/95

GETTYSBURG It seems no wall can stay its leap or balk its wild desire

Beyond the bound that Heaven hath fixed to higher mount, and higher;

But now, when whitest lifts its crest, most loud its billows call,

Touched by the Power that led them on, they fall, and fall, and fall.

Even thus, unstayed upon his course, to Gettysburg the foe

His legions led, and fought, and fled, and might no further go.

Full many a dark-eyed Southern girl shall weep her lover dead;

But with a price the fight was ours,—we too have tears to shed!

The bells that peal our triumph forth anon shall toll the brave,

Above whose heads the cross must stand, the hillside grasses wave!

Alas! alas! the trampled grass shall thrive another year,

The blossoms on the apple-boughs with each new Spring appear,

But when our patriot-soldiers fall, Earth gives them up to God;

Though their souls rise in clearer skies, their forms are as the sod;

Only their names and deeds are ours,—but, for a century yet,

The dead who fell at Gettysburg the land shall not forget.

God send us peace! and where for aye the loved and lost recline

Let fall, O South, your leaves of palm,—O North, your sprigs of pine!

But when, with every ripened year, we keep the harvest-home,

And to the dear Thanksgiving-feast our sons and daughters come, 65