The Unknown Dead
The rain is plashing on my sill,But all the winds of Heaven are still;And so it falls with that dull soundWhich thrills us in the church-yard ground,When the first spadeful drops like leadUpon the coffin of the dead.Beyond my streaming window-pane,I cannot see the neighboring vane,Yet from its old familiar towerThe bell comes, muffled, through the shower.What strange and unsuspected linkOf feeling touched, has made me think—While with a vacant soul and eyeI watch that gray and stony sky—Of nameless graves on battle-plainsWashed by a single winter’s rains,Where, some beneath Virginian hills,And some by green Atlantic rills,Some by the waters of the West,A myriad unknown heroes rest.Ah! not the chiefs, who, dying, seeTheir flags in front of victory,Or, at their life-blood’s noble costPay for a battle nobly lost,Claim from their monumental bedsThe bitterest tears a nation sheds.
Beneath yon lonely mound—the spotBy all save some fond few forgot—Lie the true martyrs of the fightWhich strikes for freedom and for right.Of them, their patriot zeal and pride,The lofty faith that with them died,No grateful page shall farther tellThan that so many bravely fell;And we can only dimly guessWhat worlds of all this world’s distress,What utter woe, despair, and dearth,Their fate has brought to many a hearth.Just such a sky as this should weepAbove them, always, where they sleep;Yet, haply, at this very hour,Their graves are like a lover’s bower;And Nature’s self, with eyes unwet,Oblivious of the crimson debtTo which she owes her April grace,Laughs gayly o’er their burial-place.