BRING BACK THE HERO'S DUST

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From: Col. Theodore O'Hara, Author of “The Bivouac of the Dead”—Soldier, Orator, Poet and Journalist
by Major Sidney Herbert.

Register of Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 39, No. 128 (July, 1941), pp.230-236.

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When it was first proposed to bring Colonel O'Hara's remains to {Frankfort Cemetery} from Ga., Captain J. S. Van de Graaf wrote the following poem:

BRING BACK THE HERO'S DUST

Son of the “dark and bloody ground.”
 Thou must not slumber there;
The sister states thy praises sound
 Along the southern air.
Kentucky s soil should be the grave—
 Thy native soil thy tomb.
The noble cause you fought to save,
 With thee, is wrapt in gloom.

The Celtic breast was fired to arms
 Regardless of the cost;
A tyrant s act awoke alarms—
 The battle now is lost.
Thou lent an ear to Honor's voice—
 True instinct of the brave—
And kindred hearts will now rejoice
 To guard their hero's grave.

The song you sung o'er warriors dead,
 The fitter requiem be;
For freely, too, thou wouldst have bled.
 And smiled at Fate's decree.
Thy gallant life has gone to God—
 A soldier's sleep be thine,
Tho' stiff thy form and cold the clod,
 Thy soul was e'er divine.

Then let thy sacred dust be laid
 In Valor's proudest spot;
And may the lyre, so sweetly played,
 By friends be not forgot—
But tuned by some great master hand
 To strike one pensive lay,
And call thy spirit to the land
 Made hallowed by the clay.

Col. Theodore O'Hara, Author of “The Bivouac of the Dead”—Soldier, Orator, Poet and Journalist, Register of Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 39, No. 128 (July, 1941), pp.230-236.