Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DECORATION DAY by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL

First Line: THERE ARE GRAVES ON MANY HILL-SIDES
Last Line: THEIR CENSERS SWING IN AIR.
Subject(s): DEATH; GRAVES; HOLIDAYS; HONOR; MEMORIAL DAY; PRAYER; SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR (1898); DEAD, THE; TOMBS; TOMBSTONES; DECLARATION DAY;
There are graves on many hill-sides,
White stones in shining rows,
Where half a hundred winters
Have spread their velvet snows.

To each the Springtime priestess
Her Paschal flowers will bear;
Each Summer's offered incense
Will breathe a people's prayer.

Over seas in tropic jungles
Of Cuba and Luzon,
The tangled thickets cover
What mothers called their own.

But snows shall never whiten
The graves wide scattered there;
Above them alien blossoms
Their censers swing in air.



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