for Memorial Day

a poem from Herman Melville's Battle Pieces (1866)

On the Men of Maine
killed in the Victory of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
___________________________
Afar they fell. It was the zone
Of fig and orange, cane and lime(A land how all unlike their own,
With the cold pine-grove overgrown),
But still their Country's clime.And there in youth they died for her -
The Volunteers,For her went up their dying prayers:
So vast the Nation, yet so strong the tie.What doubt shall come, then, to deter
The Republic's earnest faith and courage high.


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