judypatricia

Woe for the homes of the North,
And woe for the seats of the South:
All who felt life's spring in prime,
And were swept by the wind of their place and time
All lavish hearts, on whichever side,
Of birth urbane or courage high,
Armed them for the stirring wars
Armed themsome to die.
Apollo-like in pride,
Each would slay his Pythoncaught
The maxims in his temple taught
Aflame with sympathies whose blaze
Perforce enwrapped himsocial laws,
Friendship and kin, and by-gone days
Vows, kissesevery heart unmoors,
And launches into the seas of wars.
What could they elseNorth or South?
Each went forth with blessings given
By priests and mothers in the name of Heaven;
And honor in both was chief.
Warred one for Right, and one for Wrong?
So put it; but they both were young
Each grape to his cluster clung,
All their elegies are sung.

The anguish of maternal hearts
Must search for balm divine;
But well the striplings bore their fated parts
(The heavens all parts assign)
Never felt life's care or cloy.
Each bloomed and died an unabated Boy;
Nor dreamed what death wasthought it mere
Sliding into some vernal sphere.
They knew the joy, but leaped the grief,
Like plants that flower ere comes the leaf
Which storms lay low in kindly doom,
And kill them in their flush of bloom.

from On the Slain Collegians by Herman Melville