The Flag
A protest raged on a courthouse lawn,
round a makeshift stage they charged on.
Fifteen hundred or more they say,
had come to burn the Flag that day.
A boy held up the folded Flag,
cursed it and called it a dirty rag.
A man pushed through the angry crowd,
with an old gun shouldered proud.
His uniform jacket was old and tight,
he had polished each button, shiny and bright.
He crossed the stage with military grace,
until he and the boy stood face to face.
Then the old man broke the silence.
"Freedom of speech, is worth dying for,
Good men are gone, they live no more.
All so you can stand on this courthouse lawn,
and ramble on from dusk to dawn.
But before the Flag gets burned today,
this old veteran is going to have his say.
My father died on a foreign shore,
in a war they said would end all wars.
Tommy and I weren't even full grown,
before we fought in a war of our own.
Tommy died on Iwo Jima's beach,
in the shadow of a hill he couldn't reach.
Where five good men raised this Flag so high,
that the whole world could see it fly.
I got this bum leg that I still drag,
fighting for this same old Flag.
There's but one shot in this old gun, so now it's time to decide which one.
Which one of you will follow our lead, to stand and die for what you believe?"
The boy who had called it a dirty rag,handed the veteran the folded Flag.
The crowd got quiet as they walked away, to talk about what they heard that day.
So the battle for the Flag this day was won, by a loyal veteran with a single gun.
Who for one last time, had to show to some, That these colors will never, never run.
It is the veteran, not the preacher,who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the veteran, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is the veteran, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the veteran, not the politician,Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the veteran, who salutes the Flag, who serves under the Flag, whose coffin is draped by the Flag.
BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;
Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.
Their shriveled swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.
Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps the great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe,
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was "Victory or death!"
Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;
Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.
Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their father's gore
His first-born laurels grew,
And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory too.
For many a mother's breath has swept
O'er Angostura's plain --
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its moldered slain.
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o'er that dread fray.
Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air.
Your own proud land's heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims from war his richest spoil --
The ashes of her brave.
Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast
On many a bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes sepulcher.
Rest on embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep shall here tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While fame her records keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.
Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanquished ago has flown,
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your deathless tomb.
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
By Rupert Brooke
Unknown Soldier
"The anthem of the Unknown dead"
The anthem of the unknown dead,
Baptized in a pool of red,
Forgotten through the mists of time,
Both their good deeds and their crimes,
Lost souls buried in foriegn lands,
Retaken by all nature's hands,
These men whose sacrifice was all,
From lives of sorrow blest they fall,
With naught to hold aloft but pain,
Forgotten soldiers die in vain,
But Nay, a bloody battle crown,
Is won on God forsaken ground,
When they fell to deaht's cold fierce bite,
Alone and friendless in the fight,
Life dripping from their face and brow,
They fall to knees and head they bow,
But spirit keeps it's loyal fire,
A belief in a cause that's higher,
One that conquers fear of death,
And give the dieing man new breath,
Honor, passion, quest for glory,
These create the lore of story,
These fuel the heart's desire,
and create the Mental fire,
To happ'ly sacrifice one's all,
To fight in foreign lands then fall,
The anthem of the unknown dead,
Spurs the hearts of man's heros bred,
To boldly conquer any height,
To fight a foe as dark as night,
The unknown dead are hero's born,
Their heart and soul on oath they've sworn,
These hero's are the greatest man,
Who proudly die to save the land.
The Final Roll Call
We thought of you with love today
But that is nothing new.
We thought about you yesterday
And days before that too.
We think of you in silence
We often speak your name.
Now all we have are memories
And your picture in a frame.
Your memory is our keepsake
With which we'll never part
God has you in His keeping
We have you in our Heart.
Author Unknown
A Fallen Soldier
He sleeps at peace beneath a foreign sod
At peace because he won his grim crusade,
For he kept faith with home and love and God
And boasted not the sacrifice he made.
For him no sacrifice too great to keep
His land unsullied in her virgin pride;
No bloody-minded tyrant's reeking feet
Should foul the soil for which his fathers died.
In splendid youth he cared not for the cost
But cast his all into that deadly game --
His life and all his unborn sons -- and lost
Them all. For with him died his father's name.
By John Temple Meyer, July 4th, 1944