A Decoration Day

The reign of death was there,
Where swept the Winter winds with pipes and moans,
And, stretched in silence bare,
A colonnade of gray sepulchral stones.

But then it was in May,
And all the fields were bright and gay with tune
That Decoration Day,
And blossoms wore their hues and breath of June.

A motley crowd that came,
But who more fit than they that once were slaves,
Despised, unknown to fame,
With love should decorate the soldiers' graves?

Black feet trod cheerily
From out the town in crowds or straggling bands,
And flowers waved and flaunted merrily
From little Negro hands.

And far, far away
From home and love, deep in a silent bed,
Beneath the sky of May,
Was sleeping there, in solitude, the dead.

But for the hearts that day
Who in the distant North was sore and sighed,
Black hands, with sweets of May,
Made green the graves of those who for them died.