"O mother! What do they mean by
blue?
And what do they mean by
gray?"
I heard from the lips of a little
child
As she bounded in from her
play.
The mother’s eyes were filled
with tears;
She turned to her darling
fair
And smoothed away from the sunny
brow
The treasure of golden
hair.
"Why, mother’s eyes are
blue, my sweet,
And grandpa’s hair is
gray,
And the love we bear our darling
child
Grows stronger every
day."
"For what do they mean?"
maintained the child,
"For I saw two cripples
to-day,
And one of them said he had
‘fought for the blue,’
The other had ‘fought for the
gray.’
"The one of the blue had lost a
leg,
And the other had but one
arm,
And both seemed worn and weary and
sad,
Yet their greeting was kind and
warm,
They told of the battles in days gone
by
Till it made my blood run
chill,
The leg was lost in the Wilderness
fight
And the arm on Malvern
Hill.
"They sat on the stone by the
farmyard gate
And talked for an hour or
more,
Till their eyes grew bright and their
hearts seemed warm
With fighting their battles
o’er;
And parted at last with a friendly
grasp,
In a kindly, brotherly way,
Each asking God to speed the
time
Uniting the blue and the
gray."
Then the mother thought of other
days,
Two stalwart boys from her
riven;
How they’d knelt at her side,
and, lisping, prayed:
"Our Father, who art in
heaven;"
How one wore the gray and the other
the blue,
How they passed away from
sight
And had gone to the land where gray
and blue
Merge in tints of celestial
light.
And she answered her darling with
golden hair,
While her heart was sorely
wrung
With thoughts awakened in that sad
hour
By her innocent, prattling
tongue;
"The blue and the gray are the
colors of God;
They are seen in the sky at
even,
And many a noble, gallant
soul
Has found them passports to
heaven."
R.I.P
All the American Soldiers that have died in the line of duty. thank
you<3