Decoration Day : Albany celebration, May 31, 1875 : oration / by Charles A. Robertson.

  • Robertson, Charles A. (Charles Archibald), 1829-1880.
Date:
[1875?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Decoration Day : Albany celebration, May 31, 1875 : oration / by Charles A. Robertson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    DECORATION DAY. ALBANY CELEBRATION, MAY 31, 1875. for awhile to earth from the celestial presence of the All-Father, and are glad as they watch us, when with loving hands we strew the beau- tiful ilowers on the lowly mounds, beneath which the kindred dust of their bodies is re- turning to mother-earth again. We would fain believe them more happy as they witness how we will not willingly let their memory die, and as they soar back to the divine Pres- ence, that they will bear with them sweet recollections of this hour. It may be such imaginings are vain, and it may be they are not—yet it is good now to indulge them, and to feel that it is not all of life to live, or all of death to die. And why are those graves more to us than other graves ? Why do we go out, year after year, and deck them with flowers? Our homes are bright and cheerful, and our hearts are gladdened there by the reciprocal love of kindred and friends—why do we leave them to visit the sad retreats, where we meet with no word of greeting or smile of welcome— where the very air seems laden with the sobs and farewells of stricken mourners, who have moved slowly along the narrow paths, taken one final look on the closed coffin-lid, and then, in agony of grief, torn themselves for- ever away from the dear bodies of their loved and lost? Oh, no; those are not joyous places, where the gay may throng to laugh, and the frivolous pursue their pleasure, for our understandings hear the fearful though silent utterances of the dead, calling ''to corruption, thou art my father ; to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister. Still, forbidding as these considerations seem, there are strong and good reasons for repairing thither, for— That's hallowed ground, where mourned and missed, The lips repose our love has kissed Comrades of the Grand Army:—As our representatives to-day have done in person, so, let us, in mind,go forth to God's acres of green, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, above the narrow beds of out sleeping brave. In those solitudes, where every fresh ten- ant but makes the loneliness more lonely, unsatisfactory speculations about the dread certainties and uncertainties of the grave will invade reflective minds, and various emotions will stir the sensibilities of the living ; but the dead who lie there manifest no concern for anything—they are neither glad nor sorry that the returning Spring has again clothed the sod above them with a brighter hue, and no token of recognition comes from them to tell that their solitude is cheered by loving friends, who this day visit their silent abodes. '* They sleep their last sleep, they have fought their last battle, No sound shall awake them to glory again. Lovingly and tenderly the trees droop their graceful branches over them, the wind makes sad music among the leaves, the chirp of the squirrel and the notes of little birds break at intervals the deep stillness of the place, and the great sun pours over all his warm and generous light, yet they slumber on and seem as heedless at this bright and tranquil season as they are indifferent when the gale howls through the leafless branches, and the storm- swept heavens hide the sun, and the little birds have fled to warmer climes, away from the frosts and fury of winter, Still, we would fondly imagine that, although the bodies of our dead comrades are mouldering in their graves, their undaunted souls are somehow about us and with us to-day. We would fain beliave that their pure spirits have come back