TO E.S. SALOMON
Who in a Memorial Day oration protested bitterly
against decorating the graves of Confederate dead
by Ambrose Bierce 
(1842-1914?)

What! Salomon! such words from you,
  Who call yourself a soldier? Well,
  The Southern brother where he fell
Slept all your base oration through.

Alike to him -- he cannot know
  Your praise or blame: as little harm
  Your tongue can do him as your arm
A quarter-century ago.

The brave respect the brave. The brave
  Respect the dead; but you -- you draw
  That ancient blade, the ass's jaw,
And shake it o'er a hero's grave.

Are you not he who makes to-day
  A merchandise of old reknown
  Which he persuades this easy town
He won in battle far away?

Nay, those the fallen who revile
  Have ne'er before the living stood
  And stoutly made their battle good
And greeted danger with a smile.

What if the dead whom still you hate
  Were wrong? Are you so surely right?
  We know the issues of the fight --
The sword is but an advocate.

Men live and die, and other men
  Arise with knowledges diverse:
  What seemed a blessing seems a curse,
And Now is still at odds with Then.

The years go on, the old comes back
  To mock the new -- beneath the sun
  Is nothing new; ideas run
Recurrent in an endless track.

What most we censure, men as wise
  Have reverently practiced; nor 
  Will future wisdom fail to war
On principles we dearly prize.

We do not know -- we can but deem,
  And he is loyalest and best
  Who takes the light full on his breast
And follows it throughout the dream.

The broken light, the shadows wide --
  Behold the battle-field displayed!
  God save the vanquished from the blade,
The victor from the victor's pride.

If, Salomon, the blessed dew
  That falls upon the Blue and Gray
  Is powerless to wash away
The sin of differing from you,

Remember how the flood of years
  Has rolled across the erring slain;
  Remember, too, the cleansing rain 
Of widows' and of orphans' tears.

The dead are dead -- let that atone:
  And though with equal hand we strew
  The blooms on saint and sinner too,
Yet God will know to choose his own.

The wretch, whate'er his life and lot,
  Who does not love the harmless dead
  With all his heart and all his head --
May God forgive him, I shall not.

When, Salomon, you come to quaff
  The Darker Cup with meeker face,
  I, loving you at last, shall trace
Upon your tomb this epitaph:

"Draw near, ye generous and brave --
  Kneel round this monument and weep
  For one who tried in vain to keep
A flower from a soldier's grave."	

Postwar Remembrances