MEMORIAL DAY.

To-day, while earth is filled with bloom and sweetness,
A wealth of flowers on lowly mounds is spread;
To-day, amid the spring-time's full completeness,
A nation mourns a nation's honored dead.

To-day our hearts recall, with musing sadness,
Those years of darkness filled with blood and flame,
That taught us all the curse of war's wild madness, —
But when the night was past, the morning came,

Alike to rich and poor, to high and lowly,
The dawn of peace brought sunshine like a flood;
And still God's blessing crowns the land made holy
By each departed hero's precious blood.

O "boys in blue," the brave, the unreturning,
We crown you martyrs, and we call you ours,
The while with reverence and with grateful yearning
We give you tribute of our tears and flowers.

-- author unknown