“That Nation which respects and honors its dead,
Shall ever be respected and honored itself."
Edmund B. Whitman
Brevet Lieut-Col.
1868
"Ode for Memorial Day” written in 1896 by Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906), one of the first influential Black poets in American literature.
Ode for Memorial Day
Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion
Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife:
So with the singing of poems and chorals,
And with the flag flashing high in the sun,
Place on the graves of our heroes the honors
Which their unfaltering valor has won!"
“Defense of Fort M'Henry” written on September 14, 1814 before becoming popularly known as “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key, a slave owner, attorney, and poet.
The Star-Spangled Banner
“Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twlight’s last gleaming,
Whose bright stripes and bright stars
through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
Oh say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?