Our cheer goes back to them, the valiant dead! Laurels and roses on their graves to-day, Lilies and laurels over them we lay, And violets o'er each unforgotten head.

In these lines Hovey turns a public act of remembrance into a ritual of communal gratitude. The “valiant dead” are addressed as recipients of the living’s “cheer,” suggesting that celebration and mourning are intertwined: the dead are honored not only with sorrow but with uplift and praise. The repeated catalog of flowers—laurels (victory), roses (love and beauty), lilies (purity), violets (modesty and faithful memory)—draws on long-standing Western funerary symbolism to frame death in terms of sacrifice and enduring honor. The insistence on “unforgotten” heads underscores the ethical duty of memory: the living must continually renew tribute so that courage and loss are not absorbed into anonymity.