The poem for me communicates an equal sadness and respect for the fallen soldiers of the Confederate and Union armies during the American Civil War. The piece suggests throughout that the cost in human lives far outweighed any gains to be made by either side in the war, with lines like;
"These in the robbing's of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:"
Perhaps what appealed to me most about this poem however is the refrain at the end of each verse. The author dictates one scenario for "The Blue" and then a comparable scenario for "The Gray."
"Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and Love for the Gray"
"Under the roses, the Blue,
Under the lilies, the Gray"
To me this conveys that they are the same people under the same circumstances, yet they are defined purely by the army they fought for. I came up with the idea of writing the song about two brothers, fighting for opposite sides in the war, when I considered the relationship between the "Blue" and the "Gray" in this poem. After some research I discovered that this situation wasn't all that uncommon, especially in border states like Kentucky where families with divided loyalties were torn apart by the war (Brother Against Brother, 2015).
"These in the robbing's of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:"
Perhaps what appealed to me most about this poem however is the refrain at the end of each verse. The author dictates one scenario for "The Blue" and then a comparable scenario for "The Gray."
"Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and Love for the Gray"
"Under the roses, the Blue,
Under the lilies, the Gray"
To me this conveys that they are the same people under the same circumstances, yet they are defined purely by the army they fought for. I came up with the idea of writing the song about two brothers, fighting for opposite sides in the war, when I considered the relationship between the "Blue" and the "Gray" in this poem. After some research I discovered that this situation wasn't all that uncommon, especially in border states like Kentucky where families with divided loyalties were torn apart by the war (Brother Against Brother, 2015).