Explore "The Unfallen Brave" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Not all in sorrow and in tears, / To pay of gratitude's arrears / The yearly sum -- / Not prompted, wholly by the pride / Of those for whom their friends have died, / To-day we come.
Another aim we have in view / Than for the buried boys in blue / To drop a tear: / Memorial Day revives the chin / Of Barnes, and Salomon chimes in -- / That's why we're here.
And when in after-ages they / Shall pass, like mortal men, away, / Their war-song sung, / Then fame will tell the tale anew / Of how intrepidly they drew / The deadly tongue.
Then cull white lilies for the graves / Of Liberty's loquacious braves, / And roses red.
Those represent their livers, these / The blood that in unmeasured seas / They did not shed.