In that vast sepulchre repose
The thousands reaped from every fray;
The Men in Blue who once uprose
In battle-front to smite their foes
The Spartan Bands who wore the grey;
The combat o'er, the death-hug done,
In summer blaze or winter snows,
They keep the truce at Arlington.
And almost lost in myriad graves,
Of those who gained the unequal fight,
Are mounds that hide Confederate braves,
Who reck not how the North wind raves,
In dazzling day or dimmest night,
O'er those who lost and those who won;
Death holds no parley which was right—
Jehovah judges Arlington.
The dead had rest the Dove of Peace
Brooded o'er both with equal wings;
To both had come that great surcease,
The last omnipotent release
From all the world's delirious stings.
To bugle deaf and signal-gun,
They slept, like heroes of old Greece,
Beneath the glebe at Arlington.
[ 50 ]
