LOWELL'S "COMMEMORATION ODE."
[To ran Eorros OF TIER " SrzeraTos..]
Sias,—Those melancholy pages of the London illustrated papers, whereon appear the handsome faces of so many fine young Englishmen who have given their lives for their country, recall to my mind the following lines from the "Commemoration Ode" of James Russell Lowell, read at my University, Harvard, July 21st, 1865, at the end of our Civil. War, and referring to those sons of Harvard who fought and died to preserve the Union of the States. I send them here- with, if you have space for them, thinking they might comfort some sad hearts.—I am, Sir, &c., A. J. DALLAS Drxow. The Philadelphia Club, Philadelphia, USA.
"I with uncovered head
Salute the sacred dead,
Who went, and who return not. —Say not ROI 'Tie not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the gave; No her of endless night exiles the bravo;
And to the saner mind We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. Blow, trumpets, all your exaltations blow! For never shall their aureoled presence lack:
I see them muster in a gleaming row,
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; We find in our dull road their shining track; In every nobler mood
We feel the orient of their spirit glow,
Part of our life's unalterable good. Of all our saintlier aspiration ; They come transfigured back,
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!"
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