This is from an old book I own, Lyrics of Lowly Life by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The book was published in 1897. I ordered it after visiting his home in Dayton, Ohio, now a museum operated by the National Parks Service.
I’m not sure when it was written, but Dunbar was born in 1872, just seven years after the end of the Civil War. He dedicated this book to his mother, who of course lived through those terrible years. Both his parents were former slaves. As a black man, Dunbar was well aware of what slavery, discrimination, and hatred had cost: “the price of the heart’s dearest treasure.”
Memorial Day, first called Decoration Day, was established due to the large numbers who died in the Civil War, or Rebellion, as Dunbar refers to it here. The day honored those who died in that war (estimated to be over 600,000), and of course with the passage of time came to honor all those who have died in service to their country. Our way of life is made possible because of what it, “cost our fathers to gain.”
