From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, May 30, 1914. By T. C. Harbaugh.
No drum-beats in the valley
And no bugles on the hill
Where the summer breezes daily
All the battle plain is still;
When the stars come out at even
Far above the glist’ning dew,
There’s a phantom flag in heaven
There are armies in the blue.
Comes to them a call to duty
From the phantom corps of yore,
Where the roses in their beauty
Deck the far-off river’s shore;
Do they dream of comrades sleeping
Where the winds are wild and free,
Where the Rapidan is sweeping
And where lisps the Tennessee?
O, the pity and the splendor
Of the thinned, immortal lines!
Soon the Union’s last defender
Will be camping ‘neath the pines
Where no hand heart-ties can sever
And the shadows long are thrown
Where the grasses whisper ever
And no bugle blast is blown.
They are marching yet in glory
Where Potomac’s waters shine,
And the old camps tell the story
Of the heroes of the line;
By the peaceful winding river
Spectral sentries watch the foe
And their challenge sounds forever
In the Land of Long Ago.
See! A line of Blue is marching
There’s a drum-call in the street
And the heaven’s overarching
Seems the veterans to greet;
They are marching slowly, slowly
As the flowers to them nod
And their remnant grows more holy
As the years pass on to God.
From out the dim, dead distance
Charge the squadrons, Blue and Gray.
There is none to make resistance
For they vanish, like the spray;
Not a cry, no word is spoken
Ghostly banners catch the breeze,
And the silence is unbroken
‘Mong the tall and somber trees.
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