Share:
  Guess poet | Poets | Poets timeline | Isles | Contacts

Ambrose Bierce - To E.S. SalomonAmbrose Bierce - To E.S. Salomon
Work rating: Medium


What! Salomon! such words from you,   Who call yourself a soldier? Well,   The Southern brother where he fell Slept all your base oration through. Alike to him he cannot know   Your praise or blame: as little harm   Your tongue can do him as your arm A quarter-century ago. The brave respect the brave. The brave   Respect the dead; but you you draw   That ancient blade, the ass`s jaw, And shake it o`er a hero`s grave. Are you not he who makes to-day   A merchandise of old reknown   Which he persuades this easy town He won in battle far away? Nay, those the fallen who revile   Have ne`er before the living stood   And stoutly made their battle good And greeted danger with a smile. What if the dead whom still you hate   Were wrong? Are you so surely right?   We know the issues of the fight The sword is but an advocate. Men live and die, and other men   Arise with knowledges diverse:   What seemed a blessing seems a curse, And Now is still at odds with Then. The years go on, the old comes back   To mock the new beneath the sun   Is nothing new; ideas run Recurrent in an endless track. What most we censure, men as wise   Have reverently practiced; nor   Will future wisdom fail to war On principles we dearly prize. We do not know we can but deem,   And he is loyalest and best   Who takes the light full on his breast And follows it throughout the dream. The broken light, the shadows wide   Behold the battle-field displayed!   God save the vanquished from the blade, The victor from the victor`s pride. If, Salomon, the blessed dew   That falls upon the Blue and Gray   Is powerless to wash away The sin of differing from you, Remember how the flood of years   Has rolled across the erring slain;   Remember, too, the cleansing rain Of widows` and of orphans` tears. The dead are dead let that atone:   And though with equal hand we strew   The blooms on saint and sinner too, Yet God will know to choose his own. The wretch, whate`er his life and lot,   Who does not love the harmless dead   With all his heart and all his head May God forgive him, I shall not. When, Salomon, you come to quaff   The Darker Cup with meeker face,   I, loving you at last, shall trace Upon your tomb this epitaph: "Draw near, ye generous and brave   Kneel round this monument and weep   For one who tried in vain to keep A flower from a soldier`s grave."
Source

The script ran 0.006 seconds.