But the high soul burns on to light men's feet
Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet;
His life her crescent's span
Orbs full with share in their undarkening days
Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise
Since valor's praise began.

We bide our chance,
Unhappy, and make terms with Fate
A little more to let us wait;
He leads for aye the advance,
Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the desperate good
For nobler Earths and days of manlier mood;
Our wall of circumstance
Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the fight,
A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right
And steel each wavering glance.

I write of one,
While with dim eyes I think of three;
Who weeps not others fair and brave as he?
Ah, when the fight is won,
Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn
(Thee from whose forehead Earth awaits her morn),
How nobler shall the sun
Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air,
That thou bred'st children who for thee could dare
And die as thine have done.
--Lowell.

Robert Gould Shaw was born in Boston on October 10, 1837, the son of
Francis and Sarah Sturgis Shaw. When he was about nine years old, his
parents moved to Staten Island, and he was educated there, and at school
in the neighborhood of New York, until he went to Europe in 1853, where
he remained traveling and studying for the next three years. He entered
Harvard College in 1856, and left at the end of his third year, in order
to accept an advantageous business offer in New York.

Even as a boy he took much interest in politics, and especially in the
question of slavery. He voted for Lincoln in 1860, and at that time
enlisted as a private in the New York 7th Regiment, feeling that there
was likelihood of trouble, and that there would be a demand for soldiers
to defend the country. His foresight was justified only too soon, and on
April 19, 1861, he marched with his regiment to Washington. The call for
the 7th Regiment was only for thirty days, and at the expiration of that
service he applied for and obtained a commission as second lieutenant in
the 2d Massachusetts, and left with that regiment for Virginia in July,
1861. He threw himself eagerly into his new duties, and soon gained
a good position in the regiment. At Cedar Mountain he was an aid on
General Gordon's staff, and was greatly