This day we celebrate as Memorial Day was once known as Decoration Day. It originated after the Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union Soldiers. I have grown to love poetry over the last few years and the following poem was originally published by Longfellow in The Atlantic in 1882. Hauntingly beautiful.
Decoration Day
Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest
On this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
Nor sentry's shot alarms!
Ye have slept on the ground before,
And started to your feet
At the cannon's sudden roar,
Or the drum's redoubling beat.
But in this camp of Death
No sound your slumber breaks;
Here is no fevered breath,
No wound that bleeds and aches.
All is repose and peace,
Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease,
It is the Truce of God!
Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
Your rest from danger free.
Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Happy Memorial Day!
--jackie
Jackie: Your pictures are always beautiful. We spent 2 hours this morning at the cemeteries, cleaning graves and planting flowers. In the one cemetery, I stopped on the way out at my "favorite"--a man who fought in the Civil War and then spent the remainder of his life farming in this area. His stone recites what he did in the war--you have to look at a small stone to see his birth date and death date. Clearly the Civil War shaped him forever.
ReplyDelete