Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?), "To E.S. Salomon, Who in a Memorial Day oration protested bitterly against decorating the graves of Confederate dead,"
Black Beetles in Amber (New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1911), pp. 62-64 (lines 21-24):
What if the dead whom still you hate
Were wrong? Are you so surely right?
We know the issues of the fight —
The sword is but an advocate.
Id., lines 33-36:
What most we censure, men as wise
Have reverently practiced; nor
Will future wisdom fail to war
On principles we dearly prize.
Id., lines 57-60:
The wretch, whate'er his life and lot,
Who does not love the harmless dead
With all his heart and all his head —
May God forgive him, I shall not.