Peace, with its large and lilied calms,
Like moonlight sleeps on land and lake,
With healing in its dewy balms,
For pride that pines and hearts that ache,
From Huron to the land of palms!
From rock-bound Massachusetts Bay
To San Francisco's Golden Gate;
From where Itasca's waters play,
To those which plunge or palpitate
A thousand happy leagues away,
And drink, among her dunes and bars,
The Mississippi's boiling tide,
Still floating from a million spars,
The nation's ensign, undefied,
Blazons its galaxy of stars.
No more to party strife the slave,
And freed from Hate's infernal spells,
Love pays her tribute to the brave,
And snows her holy immortelles
O'er friend and foe, where'er his grave.
On every Decoration Day
The white-haired Mildred finds her mounds
Decked with the garnered bloom of May —
Flowers planted first within her wounds,
And fed by love as white as they.
And Philip's first-born, strong and sage,
Through Heaven's design or happy chance
Finds the old church his heritage,
And still, The Mistress of the Manse,
Sits Mildred, in her silver age!