Poem by Maria L. Doud Scott

DOUD, HENDERSON, SCOTT

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 1/20/2021 at 15:25:32

Gleanings From The Past by Catharine Henderson
Lest We Forget
Once again as Memorial Day rolls around, our thoughts go back in memory to those happy days shared with others who have gone before. The American Legion, I.O.O.F., Woodmen, Redmen, Pocahontas, and other groups honor their former members by decorating their graves. Services are held at the grave of the Unknown Soldier.
Iowa can indeed be proud of the many men who have marched away to war, some never to return to their homes and loved ones. How proud these men would be to know that they are not forgotten.

Lines
Tears for the brave and noble dead, God pity them! – what lonely hours
A nation’s tears are poured today; Will come with every dawning day,
Yet call they not the spirits fled Where once a path all strewn with flowers,
Back to the loved and lifeless clay. Stretched in the smiling future, lay.

A nation weeps – but oh! the tears We weep for them! Ye are at rest,
It drops for ye are not like ours, Far off upon that blessed shore,
Who knew your worth in by-gone years, There, where no war-cry thrills the breast
Who passed with you life’s happiest hours. And never comes the battle’s roar.

Yet when we seek your darkened homes, All honor to our noble dead,
Where breaking hearts find no relief, Who gave their lives our land to save,
The deepest pangs our hearts have known, They nobly lived, they bravely died –
Seem but the mockery of grief. They fill a patriot’s honored grave.

God pity them! – how can they bear
This tempest which has all o’erthrown,
And left no glimpse of sunshine where
Was once their Eden – once their home.

The above lines were written by Mrs. M. L. Scott on the death of those who fell at the Battle of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862 during the Civil War. Their words are equally fitting for the honored dead of any war.
Source: The Jasper County Tribune, Colfax, Ia.; Thursday, May 24, 1979, page 10