Deep, tender, firm and true, the Nation's heart Throbs for her gallant heroes passed away, Who in grim Battle's drama played their part, And slumber here to-day.-- Warm hearts that beat their lives out at the shrine Of Freedom, while our country held its breath As brave battalions wheeled themselves in line And marched upon their death: When Freedom's Flag, its natal wounds scarce healed, Was torn from peaceful winds and flung again To shudder in the storm of battle-field-- The elements of men,-- When every star that glittered was a mark For Treason's ball, and every rippling bar Of red and white was sullied with the dark And purple stain of war: When angry guns, like famished beasts of prey, Were howling o'er their gory feast of lives, And sending dismal echoes far away To mothers, maids, and wives:-- The mother, kneeling in the empty night, With pleading hands uplifted for the son Who, even as she prayed, had fought the fight-- The victory had won: The wife, with trembling hand that wrote to say The babe was waiting for the sire's caress-- The letter meeting that upon the way,-- The babe was fatherless: The maiden, with her lips, in fancy, pressed Against the brow once dewy with her breath, Now lying numb, unknown, and uncaressed Save by the dews of death. II What meed of tribute can the poet pay The Soldier, but to trail the ivy-vine Of idle rhyme above his grave to-day In epitaph design?-- Or wreathe with laurel-words the icy brows That ache no longer with a dream of fame, But, pillowed lowly in the narrow house, Renowned beyond the name. The dewy tear-drops of the night may fall, And tender morning with her shining hand May brush them from the grasses green and tall That undulate the land.-- Yet song of Peace nor din of toil and thrift, Nor chanted honors, with the flowers we heap, Can yield us hope the Hero's head to lift Out of its dreamless sleep: The dear old Flag, whose faintest flutter flies A stirring echo through each patriot breast, Can never coax to life the folded eyes That saw its wrongs redressed-- That watched it waver when the fight was hot, And blazed with newer courage to its aid, Regardless of the shower of shell and shot Through which the charge was made;-- And when, at last, they saw it plume its wings, Like some proud bird in stormy element, And soar untrammeled on its wanderings, They closed in death, content. III O Mother, you who miss the smiling face Of that dear boy who vanished from your sight, And left you weeping o'er the vacant place He used to fill at night,-- Who left you dazed, bewildered, on a day That echoed wild huzzas, and roar of guns That drowned the farewell words you tried to say To incoherent ones;--