192 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



renewed force. The saxifrages and the smilacina 

 have not ventured far out of the all-sheltering 

 wood, but the Confederate gray is borne all over 

 the score of memorial acres by the wild immor- 

 telles, everlasting, as the children call them, and 

 no caretaker's rake or lawnmower can keep these 

 down, or clip the violets so close that their blue 

 fails to nestle lovingly where heroes lie. All over 

 the place from spring until autumn these two set 

 their garlands side by side, as do those who mourn 

 on the one Memorial Day of the year. Thus con- 

 stant are the sun and rain and the tiny herbs of 

 the brown earth. 



As the boldest soldiers in the fray held oftenest 

 the foremost ramparts and felt themselves fortu- 

 nate in their position, so I think it must be with 

 those veterans who rest nearest the brow of the 

 hill, where it seems as if they could look forth over 

 miles of beautiful forests to the blue hills which 

 are other ramparts on the horizon. Here of an 

 early morning of this misty May they might well 

 think they saw gray troopers form and advance 

 in battalions that sweep down from the hills to 

 eastward and charge over the treetops of the vale 



