Chapter V

To thee, oh Bard! my head I bow,
As I'd not to a King,
And my last word, writ here and now,
Is not a little thing;
Recall the promise of thy strain--
Thou art to "come and sing again!"

THREE NAMES.

Virginia in her proud, Colonial days
Boasts three great names which full of glory shine;
Two glitter like the burnished heads of spears,
the third in tender light is half divine.
Turning that page my eager fancy hears
Trumpets and drums, and fleet on fleet appears.

Those names are graven deep and broad, to last
And outlast Ages: while recording Time
Hands down their story, worth an Epic Rhyme
To light her future by her splendid past:
One planned the Saxon's Empire o'er these lands,--
The other planted it with valiant hands--
The third, with Mercy's soft, celestial beams,
Lights fair romances, histories and dreams.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Whether in velvet white, slashed, and be-pearled,
And rich in knots of clustering gems a-glow:
Or, in his rusted armor, he unfurled
St. George's Cross by Oronoko's flow;
He was a man to note right well as one
Who shot his arrows straightway at the sun.

Dark was his hair, his beard all crisp and curled.
And narrow-lidded were his piercing eyes,
Anhungered in their glances for a world
That he might win by daring enterprise,--
Explorer, soldier, scholar, poet, he
Not only wrote but acted historie!--
And that great Captain, of our Saxon stock,
Took his last slumber on the ghastly block!

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.

A yeoman born, with patrimony small,
He held the world at large as his estate;
Found fit advices in the bugle's call
And took his part in iron-tongued debate
Where'er one sword another sword blade notched;
Ne'er was he slain, though often he was scotched,
Now down, now up, but always fronting fate.

At last a figure resolute, and grand
In arms he leaped upon Virginia's strand;
Fitted in many schools his course to steer
He knew the ax, the musketoon, and brand,
How to obey, and better to command;
First of his line he stood--a planted spear
The New World saw the English Pioneer!

_POCAHONTAS_.

Her story, sure, was fashioned out above,
Ere 't was enacted on the scene below!
For 't was a very miracle of love
When from the savage hawk's nest came the dove
With wings of peace to stay the ordered blow--
The hawk's plumes bloody, but the dove's as snow!

And here my heart oppressed by pleasant tears
Yields to a young girl's half angelic spell--
Yes, for that maiden like a Saint appears;
She needs no fresco, stone, nor shrine to tell
Her story to the people of this Land--
Saint of the Wilderness, enthroned amid
The wooded Minster where the Pagan hid!

SUNSET ON HAMPTON ROADS.

Behind me purplish lines marked out the town,
Before me stretched the noble Roadstead's tide:
And there I saw the Evening sun go down
Casting a parting glory far and wide--
As King who for the cowl puts off his crown--
So went the sun: and left a wealth of light
Ere hidden by the cloister-gates of Night.

Beholding this my soul was stilled in prayer,
I understood how all men, save the blind,
Might find religion in a scene so fair
And formulate a creed within the mind;--
See prophesies in clouds; fates in the air;
The skies flamed red; the murm'ring waves were hushed--
"The conscious water saw its God and blushed."

A KING'S GRATITUDE.

Plain men have fitful moods and so have Kings,
For Kings are only men, and often made
Of clay as common as e'er stained a spade.
But when the great are moody, then, the strings
Of gilded harps are smitten, and their strains
Are soft and soothing as the Summer rains.

And Saul was taken by an evil mood,
He felt within himself his spirit faint:
In vain he tossed upon his couch and wooed
Refreshing slumbers. Sleep knows no constraint!
Then David came: his physic and advice
All in a harp, and cleared the mind of Saul--
And Saul thereafter launched his javelin twice
To nail the harper to the palace wall!

"THE TWINSES." [13]

Two little children toddled up to me,
Their faces fair as faces well could be,
Roses and snow, but pale the roses were
Like flowers fainting for the lack of air.
Sad was the tender study which I gave
The winning creatures, both so sweet and grave,
Two beautiful young Saxons, scarce knee high!
As like as peas! Two Lilliputian men!
Immortal ere they knew it by the pen
Which waketh laughter or bedews the eye.
God bless you, little people! May His hand
Hold you within its hollow all your days!
Smooth all the rugged places, and your ways
Make long and pleasant in a fruitful land!

[Footnote 13: Children of his friend, Dr. George W. Bagby.]

DREAMERS.

Fools laugh at dreamers, and the dreamers smile
In answer, if they any answer make:
They know that Saxon Alfred could not bake
The oaten cakes, but that he snatched his Isle
Back from the fierce and bloody-handed Dane.

And so, they leave the plodders to their gains--
Quit money changing for the student's lamp,
And tune the harp to gain thereby some camp,
Where what they learn is worth a kingdom's crown;
They fashion bows and arrows to bring down
The mighty truths which sail the upper air;
To them the facts which make the fools despair
Become familiar, and a thousand things
Tell them the secrets they refuse to kings.

UNDER ONE BLANKET.

The sun went down in flame and smoke,
The cold night passed without alarms,
And when the bitter morning broke
Our men stood to their arms.

But not a foe in front was found
After the long and stubborn fight.
The enemy had left the ground
Where we had lain that night.

In hollows where the sun was lost
Unthawed still lay the shining snow,
And on the rugged ground the frost
In slender spears did grow.

Close to us, where our final rush
Was made at closing in of day,
We saw, amid an awful hush,
The rigid shapes of clay:

Things, which but yesterday had life,
And answered to the trumpet's call,
Remained as victims of the strife,
Clods of the Valley all!

Then, the grim detail marched away
A grave from the hard soil to wrench
Wherein should sleep the Blue and Grey
All in a ghastly trench!

A thicket of young pines arose,
Midway upon that frosty ground;
A shelter from the winds and snows,
And by its edge I found

Two stiffened forms, where they had died,
As sculptured marble white and cold,
Lying together side by side
Beneath one blanket's fold.

My heart already touched and sad
The blanket down I gently drew
And saw a sturdy form, well clad
From head to heel in Blue.

Beside him, gaunt from many a fast,
A pale and boyish "rebel" lay,
Free of all pangs of life, at last,
In tattered suit of Grey.

There side by side those soldiers slept
Each for the cause that he thought good,
And bowing down my head I wept
Through human brotherhood.

Oh, sirs! it was a piteous thing
To see how they had vainly tried
With strips of shirts, and bits of string,
To stay life's ebbing tide!

The story told itself aright;
(Print scarce were plainer to the eye)
How they together in the night
Had laid them down to die.

The story told itself, I say,
How smitten by their wounds and cold
They'd nestled close, the Blue and Grey,
Beneath one blanket's fold.

All their poor surgery could do
They did to stop their wounds so deep,
Until at last the Grey and Blue
Like comrades fell asleep.

We dug for them a generous grave,
Under that sombre thicket's lee,
And there we laid the sleeping brave
To wait God's reveille.

That grave by many a tear was graced
From ragged heroes ranged around
As in one blanket they were placed
In consecrated ground.

Aye! consecrated, without flaw,
Because upon that bloody sod,
My soul uplifted stood and saw
Where CHRIST had lately trod!

THE LEE MEMORIAL ODE.

"Great Mother of great Commonwealths"
Men call our Mother State:
And she so well has earned this name
That she may challenge Fate
To snatch away the epithet
Long given her of "great."

First of all Old England's outposts
To stand fast upon these shores
Soon she brought a mighty harvest
To a People's threshing floors,
And more than golden grain was piled
Within her ample doors.

Behind her stormy sunrise shone,
Her shadow fell vast and long,
And her mighty Adm'ral, English Smith,
Heads a prodigous throng
Of as mighty men, from Raleigh down,
As ever arose in song.

Her names are the shining arrows
Which her ancient quiver bears,
And their splendid sheaf has thickened
Through the long march of the years,
While her great shield has been burnished
By her children's blood and tears.

Yes, it is true, my Countrymen,
We are rich in names and blood,
And red have been the blossoms
From the first Colonial bud,
While her names have blazed as meteors
By many a field and flood.

And as some flood tumultuous
In sounding billows rolled
Gives back the evening's glories
In a wealth of blazing gold:
So does the present from its waves
Reflect the lights of old.

Our history is a shining sea
Locked in by lofty land
And its great Pillars of Hercules,
Above the shining sand,
I here behold in majesty
Uprising on each hand.

These Pillars of our history,
In fame forever young,
Are known in every latitude
And named in every tongue,
And down through all the Ages
Their story shall be sung.

The Father of his Country
Stands above that shut-in sea
A glorious symbol to the world
Of all that's great and free;
And to-day Virginia matches him--
And matches him with Lee.