No one thinks of presenting you with a testimonial.
No tradesman irritates by asking, "Is there any other article you wish to-day, sir?"
Impostors know it is no use to bleed you.
You swallow infinitely less poison than others.
Flatterers do not shoot their rubbish into your ears.
You are saved many a debt, many a deception, many a headache.
And lastly, if you have a true friend in the world, you are sure, in a very short space of time, to know it.
Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867) has been said to have produced the one perfect and universal martial elegy that the world has known. "The Bivouac of the Dead" has been translated into almost every European language, and since it was written, more than half a century ago, it has been almost as popular in England as in the United States.
On the field on which was fought one of the most stubbornly contested battles of the Crimean War is a large monument which bears the last four lines of the first verse of O'Hara's poem, and over the gateway of the National Cemetery at Arlington the whole first stanza is inscribed, while there, as at Antietam and other national cemeteries, the entire poem is produced, stanza by stanza, on slabs along the driveways.
O'Hara was a native of Kentucky, and served in the army during the war with Mexico. He wrote "The Bivouac of the Dead" on the occasion of the removal of the bodies of Kentucky soldiers from the field of the battle of Buena Vista to their native State.
At the outbreak of the Civil War O'Hara entered the Confederate army as a colonel. He died in Alabama in 1867, and his body was removed to Kentucky and laid beside those of the soldiers he had commemorated.
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo! No more on life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac of the dead.
No rumor of the foe's advance Now swells upon the wind; No troubled thought at midnight haunts Of loved ones left behind; No vision of the morrow's strife The warrior's dream alarms; No braying horn nor screaming fife At dawn shall call to arms.
Their shivered swords are red with rust, Their plumed heads are bowed, Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, Is now their martial shroud, And plenteous funeral tears have washed The red stains from each brow, And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now.