(Of Gettysburg Field.)

Friends with a love that grows,
Friends with a love sublime,
That deeper, broader flows,
That deeper, broader flows,
And flows to the end of time.

" The aim of war is peace. "
And love to peace belongs;
Let peevish bickerings cease;
The brave forget their wrongs!

Where once, in war's eclipse,
Cannon, with fevered breath,
With hot and trembling lips,
Roared their hoarse threats of death,

The heroes of the fray,
The men who shed their blood,
Have plighted — Blue and Gray —
Eternal brotherhood;

Have laid their hatreds there,
Deep as the buried slain —
Shame on the ghouls that dare
To dig them up again!

Have found forgotten graves,
With sweet flowers overgrown —
Why search where green grass waves
For some uncovered bone?

No spot upon this earth
Has seen more glorious hate;
No spot has greater birth
Of love made consecrate.

Oh, that some prince of song,
Some wizard of men's tears,
Would float its fame along
The muddy stream of years!

Would sing, in worthy strain,
How the mad battle surged
When Pickett o'er the plain
His brave Virginians urged —

Earthquake and thunder thrill,
Lightning, that blazed and leapt,
And then, from hill to hill,
The living cyclone swept;

How gallant Armistead,
With cheeks and eyes aflame,
Rushed, with uncovered head,
Into the arms of Fame!

How Cushing, pierced to death,
Clung to his cannon hot,
Shouting, with dying breath:
" I'll give them one more shot. "

Splendid they were as foes,
Heroes, both wrong and right;
Shame on the one that throws
Mud at their flag of white!

Idle are words of hate,
Useless are taunts and slurs;
The chariot wheels of Fate
Will crush all wayside curs.

Since this round world was bowled,
It has smooth and smoother whirled;
And before the sun grows cold
Love will have warmed the world.