Lines on the Death of Sergeant Foley and Private Carey, Company G, 27th Infantry. (By John J. Reidy.)
Here, cold in their graves, near the spot where they fell,
In the darkness of night’s dismal gloom,
Rest two soldiers whose valor could not be excelled,
Slumbering in their desolate tombs.
Far away from their kindred they are sleeping to-day
In Mindanao’s untrodden plains,
Where their comrades have laid them to moulder away
Into dust, in their cold silent graves.
By Camp Vicars they fought at the dead hour of night
Outnumbered by the savages wild;
Until they fell, overpowered, on the sward at the feet
Of their foemen, where like soldiers they died.
Perhaps far away in their own native land,
In the homes of their childhood so dear,
Are their mothers awaiting to grasp their kind hands—
But alas! they shall wait many years.
For their loved ones will never return again
To greet them through life’s pleasant way,
For they are laying in the grass-covered graves where they fell,
And are sleeping long ages away.
But though death has overtaken those heroes so brave
Who fell for their Country’s fame,
Yet their memory shall always live on the breasts
Of their comrades, whom they perished to save.