Cypress Hills National Cemetery

There is something intensely solemn and sobering about seeing so many headstones laid out in uniform row upon row of white marble, as they are here at the Cypress Hills National Cemetery run by the Veterans Administration of the United States.

NOTE: I should point out, that those buried here are servicemen and women who survived the initial conflicts they were involved in, but who have subsequently passed on.

I've walked through this site (located diagonally opposite the 12 Towns YMCA), on several occasions, but it was during my last visit on Thursday, May 8, 2008, that I took a series of images, and wrote my own little poem, Tread Gently, in tribute to the men and women buried here.

You can see a folio of images via my Facebook profile here...

Within the site, two large bronze plaques each contain one stanza from a seven stanza poem called, THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD, written by the American poet, Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867). Here is the full poem.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD
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 with 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.

'Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to many a martyr's grave;
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.

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