Thoughts for the day

A mother's gift to her country's cause is a story yet untold

She had three sons, three only sons, each worth his weight in gold

She gave them up for the sake of war, while her heart was filled with pain

As each went away, she was heard to say, he will never return again

CHORUS

One lies down near Appomattax, many miles away

Another sleeps at Chickamauga, and they both wore suits of gray

'Mid the strains of "Down to Dixie", the third was laid away

In a trench at Santiago, the Blue and the Gray

She's alone tonight, while the stars shine bright, with a heart full of despair

On the last great day, I can hear her say, my three boys will be there

Perhaps they'll wait, at the heav'nly gates, on guard beside their guns

Then the mother true, to the gray and blue, may enter with her sons

--The Blue and The Gray, by Paul Dresser

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. -- Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address

In Flanders fields the poppies blow       Between the crosses, row on row,    That mark our place; and in the sky    The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

--- In Flander's Fields, by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae