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is still the old harp that was always your own. I claim not its music,--each note it affords I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords; I know you will listen and love to the last, For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past. Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold No craftsman could string and no artisan mould; He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs. Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings, Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings; Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled, Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed. Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this, Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss; The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will, Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still. The bird wanders careless while summer is green, The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen; When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed, The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest. Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling Is the light of our year, is the gem of its ring, So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget The rays it has lost, and its border of jet. While round us the many-hued halo is shed, How dear are the living, how near are the dead! One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below, Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow! Not life shall enlarge it nor death shall divide,-- No brother new-born finds his place at my side; No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest, His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest. Some won the world's homage, their names we hold dear,-- But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here; Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife For the comrade that limps from the battle of life! What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word; It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave, It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave. Peace, Peace comes at last, with her garland of white; Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night; The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun; We echo its words,--We are one! We are one! ALL HERE 1867 IT is not what we say or sing, That keeps our charm so long unbroken, Though every lightest leaf we bring May touch the heart as friendship's token; Not what we s
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