I
Ay, it is fitting on this holiday,Commemorative of our soldier dead,When—with sweet flowers of our New England MayHiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray—Their graves in every town are garlanded,That pious tribute should be given tooTo our intrepid fewObscurely fallen here beyond the seas.Those to preserve their country’s greatness died;But by the death of theseSomething that we can look upon with prideHas been achieved, nor wholly unrepliedCan sneerers triumph in the charge they makeThat from a war where Freedom was at stakeAmerica withheld and, daunted, stood aside.