They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died, aye! they died; we things that are now
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make of their dwellings a transient abode.
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge.
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.
’Tis the wink of an eye, ’tis the draft of a breath;
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and shroud—
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
GOD SPEED THE RIGHT.
[The music of this familiar song is found in Riverside Song Book, published by Houghton, Mifflin, etc. Price 40c.]
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Patient, firm, and persevering,
God speed the right;
Ne’er th’ event nor danger fearing,
God speed the right;
Pains nor toils nor trials heeding,
In the strength of heav’n succeeding,
God speed the right,
God speed the right.
ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG.
[Dedication of National Cemetery, Nov., 1863.]
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this; but in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here;
