THE DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT, INDIANAPOLIS, MAY 15, 1902 THE Soldier! -- meek the title, yet divine: Therefore, with reverence, as with wild acclaim, We fain would honor in exalted line The glorious lineage of the glorious name: The Soldier. -- Lo, he ever was and is, Our Country's high custodian, by right Of patriot blood that brims that heart of his With fiercest love, yet honor infinite, The Soldier -- within whose inviolate care The Nation takes repose, -- her inmost fane Of Freedom ever has its guardian there, As have her forts and fleets on land and main: The Heavenward Banner, as its ripples stream In happy winds, or float in languid flow, Through silken meshes ever sifts the gleam Of sunshine on its Sentinel below. The Soldier! -- Why, the very utterance Is music -- as of rallying bugles, blent With blur of drums and cymbals and the chants Of battle-hymns that shake the continent! -- The thunder-chorus of a world is stirred To awful, universal jubilee, -- Yet ever through it, pure and sweet, are heard The prayers of Womanhood, and Infancy. Even as a fateful tempest sudden loosed Upon our senses, so our thoughts are blown Back where The Soldier battled, nor refused A grave all nameless in a clime unknown. -- The Soldier -- though, perchance, worn, old and gray; The Soldier -- though, perchance, the merest lad, -- The Soldier -- though he gave his life away, Hearing the shout of "Victory," was glad; Ay, glad and grateful, that in such a cause His veins were drained at Freedom's holy shrine -- Rechristening the land -- as first it was, -- His blood poured thus in sacramental sign Of new baptism of the hallowed name "My Country" -- now on every lip once more And blest of God with still enduring fame. -- This thought even then The Soldier gloried o'er. The dying eyes upraised in rapture there, -- As, haply, he remembered how a breeze Once swept his boyish brow and tossed his hair, Under the fresh bloom of the orchard-trees -- When his heart hurried, in some wistful haste Of ecstasy, and his quick breath was wild And balmy-sharp and chilly-sweet to taste, -- And he towered godlike, though a trembling child! Again, through luminous mists, he saw the skies' Far fields white-tented; and in gray and blue And dazzling gold, he saw vast armies rise And fuse in fire -- from which, in swiftest view, The Old Flag soared, and friend and foe as one Blent in an instant's vivid mirage. . . . Then The eyes close smiling on the smiling sun That changed the seer to a child again. -- And, even so, The Soldier slept. -- Our own! -- The Soldier of our plaudits, flowers and tears, -- O this memorial of bronze and stone -- His love shall outlast @3this@1 a thousand years! Yet, as the towering symbol bids us do, -- With soul saluting, as salutes the hand, We answer as The Soldier answered to The Captain's high command. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DROUTH WILL BE ENDED by GLADYS NAOMI ARNOLD MEAPLE LEAVES BE YOLLOW by WILLIAM BARNES PSALM 21. DOMINE IN VIRTUTE by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE LOVE IN EXILE: L'ENVOI by MATHILDE BLIND IN WILTSHIRE; SUGGESTED BY POINTS OF SIMILARITY WITH THE SOMME COUNTRY by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN TO A PERSIAN ROSE by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE |