Chapter I

Ay, it is fitting on this holiday, Commemorative of our soldier dead, When--with sweet flowers of our New England May Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray -- Their graves in every town are garlanded, That pious tribute should be given too To our intrepid few Obscurely fallen here beyond the seas. Those to preserve their country's greatness died; But by the death of these Something that we can look upon with pride Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make That from a war where Freedom was at stake America withheld and, daunted, stood aside.