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GEORGE W. RANGER, ESQ., OF FARMINGTON.

THERE'S a story told in the granite shaft, that springs from the village square.
To the soldier dead and their patriot deeds and the homes and hearts laid bare,
Of the days of battle and fire and flame, for the flag they sought to free,
—That little shaft with the simple text "They died on land or sea."
It touches the heart in a strange, sad way—as a voice from the nation's past;
Like a dream of youth, a thing unreal; till we meet in a fond hand-clasp
A gray haired man who was there himself and who makes the story true
And who links our times to the days that are gone when he was a boy in blue.
I mind me thus of the man above, who was only a boy on the farm,
When he heard the call for men at arms and who sprang  at the first alarm
And who heard the news of Richmond's fall while under the leaden rain
In the shambles of men at Petersburg, with the gallant old Sixth Maine.

'Tis not for me to tell the tale of friend Ranger's busy life,
The dominant notes of his great success were told in his early strife,
Thru thick and thin, a soldier's sense—"My duty"—that is he—
In public trusts, in business life, his sole desire shall be
To live with such a purpose clear as to warrant the things he's done
And befit the granite shaft he's reared in his home at Farmington.