Who in a Memorial Day oration protested bitterly against
      decorating the graves of Confederate dead.

  What! Salomon! such words from you,
    Who call yourself a soldier? Well,
    The Southern brother where he fell
  Slept all your base oration through.

  Alike to him—he cannot know
    Your praise or blame: as little harm
    Your tongue can do him as your arm
  A quarter-century ago.

  The brave respect the brave. The brave
    Respect the dead; but you—you draw
    That ancient blade, the ass's jaw,
  And shake it o'er a hero's grave.

  Are you not he who makes to-day
    A merchandise of old renown
    Which he persuades this easy town
  He won in battle far away?

  Nay, those the fallen who revile
    Have ne'er before the living stood
    And stoutly made their battle good
  And greeted danger with a smile.

  What if the dead whom still you hate
    Were wrong? Are you so surely right?
    We know the issue of the fight—
  The sword is but an advocate.

  Men live and die, and other men
    Arise with knowledges diverse:
    What seemed a blessing seems a curse,
  And Now is still at odds with Then.

  The years go on, the old comes back
    To mock the new—beneath the sun.
    Is nothing new; ideas run
  Recurrent in an endless track.

  What most we censure, men as wise
    Have reverently practiced; nor
    Will future wisdom fail to war
  On principles we dearly prize.

  We do not know—we can but deem,
    And he is loyalest and best
    Who takes the light full on his breast
  And follows it throughout the dream.

  The broken light, the shadows wide—
    Behold the battle-field displayed!
    God save the vanquished from the blade,
  The victor from the victor's pride!

  If, Salomon, the blessed dew
    That falls upon the Blue and Gray
    Is powerless to wash away
  The sin of differing from you.

  Remember how the flood of years
    Has rolled across the erring slain;
    Remember, too, the cleansing rain
  Of widows' and of orphans' tears.

  The dead are dead—let that atone:
    And though with equal hand we strew
    The blooms on saint and sinner too,
  Yet God will know to choose his own.

  The wretch, whate'er his life and lot,
    Who does not love the harmless dead
    With all his heart and all his head—
  May God forgive him—I shall not.

  When, Salomon, you come to quaff
    The Darker Cup with meeker face,
    I, loving you at last, shall trace
  Upon your tomb this epitaph:

  "Draw near, ye generous and brave—
    Kneel round this monument and weep:
    It covers one who tried to keep
  A flower from a dead man's grave."