Chapter III

That solitary cloud grows dark and wide,
While distant thunder rumbles in the air,
A fitful ripple breaks the river's tide--
The lazy cattle are no longer there,
But homeward come in long procession slow,
With many a bleat and many a plaintive low.

Darker and wider-spreading o'er the west
Advancing clouds, each in fantastic form,
And mirror'd turrets on the river's breast
Tell in advance the coming of a storm--
Closer and brighter glares the lightning's flash
And louder, nearer, sounds the thunder's crash.

The air of evening is intensely hot,
The breeze feels heated as it fans my brows--
Now sullen rain-drops patter down like shot--
Strike in the grass, or rattle 'mid the boughs.
A sultry lull: and then a gust again,
And now I see the thick-advancing rain.

It fairly hisses as it comes along,
And where it strikes bounds up again in spray
As if 'twere dancing to the fitful song
Made by the trees, which twist themselves and sway
In contest with the wind which rises fast,
Until the breeze becomes a furious blast.

And now, the sudden, fitful storm has fled,
The clouds lie pil'd up in the splendid west,
In massive shadow tipp'd with purplish red,
Crimson or gold. The scene is one of rest;
And on the bosom of yon still lagoon
I see the crescent of the pallid moon.

THE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL ODE.

Certain events, like architects, build up
Viewless cathedrals, in whose aisles the cup
Of some impressive sacrament is kist--
Where thankful nations taste the Eucharist.
Pressed to their lips by some heroic Past
Enthroned like Pontiff in the temple vast--
Where incense rises t'wards the dome sublime
From golden censers in the hands of Time--
Where through the smoke some sculptured saint appears
Crowned with the glories of historic years;
Before whose shrine whole races tell their beads--
From whose pale front each sordid thought recedes,
Gliding away like white and stealthy ghost,
As Memory rears it's consecrated Host,
As blood and body of a sacred name
Make the last supper of some deathless fame.

This the event! Here springs the temple grand,
Whose mighty arches take in all the land!
Its twilight aisles stretch far away and reach
'Mid lights and shadows which defy my speech:
And near its portal which Morn opened wide--
Grey Janitor!--to let in all this tide
Of prayerful men, most solemnly there stands
One recollection, which, for pious hands
Is ready like the Minster's sculptured vase,
With holy water for each reverent face.
And mystic columns, which my fancy views,
Glow in a thousand soft, subduing hues
Flung through the stained windows of the Past in gloom,
Of royal purple o'er our warrior's tomb.

* * * * *

Oh, proud old Commonwealth! thy sacred name
Makes frequent music on the lips of Fame!
And as the nation, in its onward march,
Thunders beneath the Union's mighty arch,
Thine the bold front which every patriot sees
The stateliest figure on its massive frieze.
Oh, proud old State! well may thy form be grand,
'Twas thine to give a Savior to the land.
For, in the past, when upward rose the cry,
"Save or we perish!" thine 'twas to supply
The master-spirit of the storm whose will
Said to the billows in their wrath: "Be still!"
And though a great calm followed, yet the age
In which he saw that mad tornado rage
Made in its cares and wild tempestuous strife
One solemn Passion of his noble life.

This day, then, Countrymen of all the year,
We well may claim to be without a peer:
Amid the rest--impalpable and vast--
It stands a Cheops looming through the past,
Close to the rushing, patriotic Nile
Which here o'erflows our hearts to make them smile
With a rich harvest of devoted zeal,
Men of Virginia, for the Common-weal!

And to our Bethlehem ye who come to-day--
Ye who compose this multitude's array--
Ye who are here from mighty Northern marts
With frankincense and myrrh within your hearts--
Ye who are here from the gigantic West,
The offspring nurtured at Virginia's breast,
Which in development by magic seems
Straight to embody all that Progress dreams--
Ye who are here from summer-wedded lands--
From Carolina's woods to Tampa's sands,
From Florida to Texas broad and free
Where spreads the prairie, like a dark, green sea--
Ye whose bold fathers from Virginia went
In wilds to pitch brave enterprise's tent,
Spreading our faith and social system wide,
By which we stand peculiarly allied!--
Ye Southern men, whose work is but begun,
Whose course is on t'ward regions of the sun,
Whose brave battalions moved to tropic sods
Solemn and certain as though marching gods
Were ordered in their circumstance and state
Beneath the banner of resistless Fate!

Ye have been welcomed, Countrymen, by him [3]
Beside whose speech my rhetoric grows dim--
Whose thoughts are flint and steel--whose words are flame,
For they all stir us like some hero's name:
But once again the Commonwealth extends
Her open hand in welcome to her friends;
Come ye from North, or South, or West, or East,
No bull's head enters at Virginia's feast.
And ye who've journeyed hither from afar,
Know that fair Freedom's liquid morning star
Still sheds its glories in a thousand beams,
Gilding our forests, fountains, mountains, streams,
With light as luminous as on that morn
When the Messiah of the land was born.
Then as we here partake the mystic rites
To which his memory like a priest invites;
Kneeling beside the altars of this day,
Let every heart subdued one moment pray,

[Footnote 3: Governor Wise.]

* * * * *

That He who lit our morning star's pure light
Will never blot it from the nation's sight;
That He will banish those portentous clouds
Which from so many its effulgence shrouds--
Which none will deem me Hamlet-mad when I
Say hang like banners on the darkened sky,
Suggesting perils in their warlike shape,
Which Heavenly Father grant that we escape!

* * * * *

Why touch upon these topics, do you ask?
Why blend these themes with my allotted task?
My answer's brief, 'tis, Citizens, because
I see fierce warfare made upon the Laws.
A people's poets are that people's seers,
The prophet's faculty, in part, is theirs,
And thus 'tis fit that from this statue's base,
Beneath great Washington's majestic face,
That I should point the dangers which menace
Our social temple's symmetry and grace.

* * * * *

But here I pause, for happier omens look,
And playing Flamen turn to Nature's book:
Where late rich Autumn sat on golden throne,
A stern usurper makes the crown his own;
The courtier woodlands, robbed of all their state,
Stripped of their pomp, look grim and desolate;
Reluctant conscripts, clad in icy mail,
Their captive pleadings rise on every gale.
Now mighty oaks stand like bereaved Lears;
Pennons are furled on all the sedgy spears
Where the sad river glides between its banks,
Like beaten general twixt his pompless ranks;
And the earth's bosom, clad in armor now,
Bids stern defiance to the iron plough,
While o'er the fields so desolate and damp
Invading Winter spreads his hostile camp.[4]

And as he shakes his helmet's snowy plume
The landscape saddens into deeper gloom.
But yet ere many moons have flung to lea,
To begging billows of the hungry sea,
Their generous gold--like oriental queens--
A change will pass o'er all these wintry scenes;
There'll come the coronation of glad Spring,
Grander than any made for bride of king.

[Footnote 4: The statue was unveiled in a snow-storm.]

* * * * *

Earth's hodden grey will change to livelier hues
Enriched with pearl drops of the limpid dews;
Plenty will stand with her large tranquil eyes
To see her treasures o'er the landscape rise.
Thus may the lover of his country hope
To see again the Nation's spring-tide ope,
And freedom's harvest turn to ripened gold,
So that our world may give unto the old
Of its great opulence, as Joseph gave
Bread to his brothers when they came to crave.

But from his name I've paused too long you think?
Yet he who stands beside Niagra's brink
Breaketh not forth at once of its grand strife;
'Tis thus I stand subdued by his great life--

* * * * *

And with his name a host of others rise,
Climbing like planets, Fame's eternal skies:
Great names, my Brothers! with such deeds allied
That all Virginians glow with filial pride--
That here the multitude shall daily pace
Around this statue's hero-circled base,
Thinking on those who, though long sunk in sleep,
Still round our camp the guard of sentries keep--
Who when a foe encroaches on our line,
Prompt the stern challenge for the countersign--
Who with proud memories feed our bright watch-fire
Which ne'er has faded, never will expire;
Grand benedictions, they in bronze will stand
To guard and consecrate our native land!
Great names are theirs! But his, like battle song,
In quicker current sends our blood along;
For at its music hearts throb quick and large,
Like those of horsemen thundering in the charge.
God's own Knight-Errant! There his figure stands!
Our souls are full--our bonnets in our hands!

When the fierce torrent--lava-like--of bronze
To mould this statue burst it furnace bonds,
When it out-thundered in its liquid flow,
With splendid flame and scintillating glow,
'Twas in its wild tumultuous throb and storm
Type of the age which moulded into form
The god-like character of him sublime,
Whose name is reared a statue for all time
In the great minster of the whole world's heart.

* * * * *

I've called his name a statue. Stern and vast
It rests enthroned upon the mighty past:
Fit plinth for him whose image in the mind
Looms up as that of one by God designed!
Fit plinth in sooth! the mighty past for him
Whose simple name is Glory's synonyme!
E'en Fancy's self, in her enchanted sleep,
Can dream no future which may cease to keep
His name in guard, like sentinel and cry
From Time's great bastions: "It shall never die."

* * * * *

His simple name a statue? Yes, and grand
'Tis reared in this and every other land.
Around its base a group more noble stands
Than e'er was carved by human sculptor's hands,
E'en though each form, like that of old should flush
With vivid beauty's animating blush--
Though dusky bronze, or pallid stone should thrill
With sudden life at some Pygmalion's will--
For these great figures, with his own enshrined,
Are seen, my Countrymen, by men, though blind.

There Valor fronts us with her storied shield,
Brave in devices won on many a field;
A splendid wreath snatched from the carnage grim
Is twined around that buckler's burnished rim,
And as we gaze, the brazen trumpets blare
With shrill vibration shakes the frightened air--
The roll of musketry--the clash of steel--
The clang of hoofs as charging squadrons wheel--
The hoarse command--the imprecative cry--
Swell loud and long, while Fancy's eager eye
Sees the stern van move on with crimson strides
Where Freedom's warrior on his war-horse rides,
Sees the great cannon flash out red and fast
Through battle mists which canopy the past.

And solemn-fronted Truth with earnest eyes,
Stands there serenely beautiful and wise;
Her stately form in undisturbed repose,
Rests by her well, where limpid crystal flows
While on her face, which can severely frown,
A smile is breaking as she gazes down;
For clearly marked upon that tranquil wave
Slumbers his image in a picture brave,
And leaning on the fountain's coping stone,
She scarce can tell his shadow from her own.

And Wisdom, with her meditative gaze,
Beside its base her mighty chart displays;
There with her solemn and impressive hand
Writes as she stoops--as Christ wrote on the sand--
But what she traces all may read--'tis this:
An invocation by our dreams of bliss--
By hopes to do and by our great deeds done,
The war of sections thro' all time to shun--
She writes the words which almost seem divine,
"Our deadliest foe's a geographic line!"
And Justice, with her face severely grand,
Stands 'mid the group, her balances in hand:
Faultless in judging trivial deeds, or great,
Unmoved by love and unimpressed by hate.
Beside her gleams undimmed by spot, or rust,
A mighty blade to strike when strike she must;
And this bright falchion like that which defends
The guarded gate where earth in Eden ends,
With flame terrific and with ponderous sway
Frightens each Brennus from her scales away.

And there we see pale, pleading Mercy bow,
A troubled shadow on her saintly brow;
Her fringed lashes tremulous with tears,
Which glitter still through all the change of years:
And as we see those tear drops slowly rise,
Giving new softness to her tender eyes,
Away the mists which o'er the dark past drift
Are rent and scattered, while the sudden rift
Shows, like some distant headland vast and dim
Seen through the tempest, the great soul of him
Who guarding against the native traitor, could
Turn from her pleadings for his country's good.

And Honor last completes the stately group,
With eye like eagle's in descending swoop,
Fronted like goddess beautiful and proud
When sailing on the "lazy-pacing cloud":
Prouder her port than that of all the rest,
With radiant forehead and translucent breast,
She needs no gesture of supreme command
For us to know her foremost of the band:
They were his counsellors, she as the mind
By which their promptings were in deeds combined--
In deeds which Fame, like fasces bears before
The noblest consul that earth ever bore.

* * * * *

Why are we here? It were a bitter shame
To pay this homage to a hero's name,
And yet forget the principles which gave
His true defiance to oblivion's wave!
Aye! Sirs, remember when the day is spent,
In Freedom's camp our soldier pitched his tent!
Maintain your own--respect your brother's right--
Thus will you praise Jehovah's belted Knight.

Are we Pompeians gathered here to-day,
Gazing upon our last superb display?
Crowning the hours with many a festal wreath,
While red Vesuvius bubbles underneath?
Oh! no, my Countrymen! This cloud must be
The smoke of incense floating o'er the free!
No lava-flood can e'er o'erwhelm this land,
Held as 'tis holden, in God's mighty hand.

And when the garlands of to-day are pale,
Shall clang of armorers riveting our mail
Rise in harsh dissonance where now the song
In surging music sweeps the land along?
No, Brothers, no! The Providence on high
Stretches above us like the arching sky;
As o'er the world that broad empyrean field,
So o'er the nation God's protecting shield!

* * * * *

His the great will which sways the tide of earth--
His the great will which giveth empires birth--
And this grand truth through every age and clime
Is written out in characters sublime;
But most we see the traces of His hand
In the great Epic of our native land.

This new world had its Adam and he fled--
God's was the voice and God's the mighty tread
Which scared the red man from his Eden bowers
God's the decree which made the garden ours!
And Eden 'twas and such it still remains:
Oh, Brothers! shall we prove a race of Cains?
Shall impious hands be armed with deadly things,
Because we bring up different offerings
Unto our altars? To the Nation's shrine
I take my gift; my brother, take thou thine!
Again I ask: While this proud bronze remains,
Shall this great people prove a race of Cains?
Here make your answer at this statue's base,
Beneath this warrior's calm, majestic face;
And here remember that your best applause
To him is shown in standing by the Laws!
But if our rights shall ever be denied,
I call upon you, by your race's pride,
To seek some "West Augusta" and unfurl
Our banner where the mountain vapors curl:
Lowland and valley then will swell the cry,
He left us free: thus will we live, or die!
One other word, Virginia, hear thy son,
Whose filial service now is nearly done--
Hear me old State! Thou art supremely blest:
A hero's ashes slumber in thy breast!
Oh, Mother! if the ashes of a king
Could nerve to deeds with which Fame's trumpets ring,
What glove of challenger shall make thee start,
When thy great son lies sleeping on thy heart!

HOW IT FELL CALM ON SUMMER NIGHT.

My Lady's rest was calm and deep:
She had been gazing at the moon;
And thus it chanced she fell asleep
One balmy night in June.

Freebooter winds stole richest smells
From roses bursting in the gloom,
And rifled half-blown daffodils,
And lilies of perfume.

These dainty robbers of the South
Found "beauty" sunk in deep repose,
And seized upon her crimson mouth,
Thinking her lips a rose.

The wooing winds made love full fast--
To rouse her up in vain they tried--
They kist and kist her, till, at last,
In ecstasy they died.

A FRIEND OF MINE.

We sat beneath tall waving trees that flung
Their heavy shadows o'er the dewy grass.
Over the waters, breaking at our feet,
Quivered the moon, and lighted solemnly
The scene before us.

He with whom I talked
Was in the noble vigor of his youth:
Tall, much beyond the standard, and well knit,
With a dark, Norman face, from which the breeze
Flung back his locks of ebon darkness which
In rare luxuriance fell around his brow,
That, in its massive beauty, brought me up
Pictures by ancient masters; or the sharp
And perfect features carved by Grecian hands,
In days when Gods, in forms worthy of Gods,
Started from marble to bewitch the world--
A brow so beautiful was his, that one
Might well conceive it always bound with dreams;
His eyes were luminous and full of gleams,
That made me think of waves wherein I've seen
The moon-hued lightning breaking in the dark
With sudden flashes of phosphoric light:
His cheeks were bronze, his firm lips scarlet-hued.
The Roman's valor, the Assyrian's love
Of ease and pomp sat on his crimson lips,
Uneasy rulers on the self-same throne,
Spoiling the empire of the soul within:
Such was his face.

* * * * *

His thoughts went forth like emperors, and all
His words arrayed themselves around them like
Imperial guards.

* * * * *

Opinions which I had been taught to hold
As full of pith and gravity, he took
As 'twere, 'twixt thumb and finger of his wit--
Rubbed off their gloss, until they seemed to me,
All, as he said, varnished hypocrisies.

* * * * *

Most wise for one so young! and strangely read
In books of quaint philosophy--although
His mind's strange alchemy could find some
Rich thought hidden in the basest thing,
Which he transmuted into golden words,
So that in hearing him I often thought
Upon the story of that Saint whose mouth
Was radiant with the angel's blessed touch,
Which gave him superhuman eloquence;
And though he was thus gifted, yet--ah me!

* * * * *

Still earnest with my theme, I bade him think
Of Auerbach's cellar, and that wassail night
Whole centuries ago: and then in phrase,
Better than that which cometh to me now
I likened it--the necromancy which
Drew richest vintage from the rugged boards--
Unto the spell wherewith he'd bound himself--
The spell by which he drew from simplest things
Conceptions beautiful, as Faust drew wine
From the rude table; for this friend of mine
Was a true poet, though he seldom wrote:
The wealth which might have royally endowed
Some noble charity for coming time
Was idly wasted--pearls dissolved in wine--

* * * * *

Still on my theme I hung and pointed out,
Full eagerly, how Mephistopheles
Ordered the gimlet wherewith it was drawn:

* * * * *

But he who went his way that summer night,
Beneath the shadow of those stately trees
Comes back to me--to earth--ah! nevermore.

* * * * *

He fell obscurely in the common ranks--
His keen sword rusted in its splendid sheath.
God pardon him his faults! for faults he had;
But oh! so blent with goodness, that the while
The lip of every theory of his
Curved with a sneer, each action smiled
With Christian charity.

Like Manfred he had summoned to his aid
Forbidden ministers--but unlike his--
Of the earth, earthy, which did slowly clutch
Upon his lofty faculties until
They summoned him from the lone tow'r of thought
And false philosophy wherein he dwelt.
God pardon him! Amen.

INDOLENCE. [5]

* * * * *

I turn aside; and, in the pause, might start
As Mem'ry's elbow leans upon Time's Chart,
Which shows, alas! how soon all men must glide
Over meridians on life's ocean tide--
Meridians showing how both youth and sage
Are sailing northward to the zone of age:
On to an atmosphere of gloom I wist,
Where mariners are lost in melancholy mist.
But gayer thoughts, like spring-tide swallows, dart
Through youth's brave mind and animate its heart.

* * * * *

But Indolence is seen a pallid Ruth--
A timid gleaner in the fields of youth--
A wretched gath'rer of the scattered grain
Left by the reapers who have swept the plain;
But with no Boaz standing by the while,
To watch its figure with approving smile.

[Footnote 5: (From a Poem pronounced before the Phi Beta Kappa Society and graduating classes of William and Mary College, July 4th, 1858.)]

THE JAMESTOWN ANNIVERSARY ODE.

* * * * *

In those vast forests dwelt a race of kings,
Free as the eagle when he spreads his wings--
His wings which never in their wild flight lag--
In mists which fly the fierce tornado's flag;
Their flight the eagle's! and their name, alas!
The eagle's shadow swooping o'er the grass,
Or, as it fades, it well may seem to be
The shade of tempest driven o'er the sea.

Fierce, too, this race, as mountain torrent wild,
With haughty hearts, where Mercy rarely smiled--
All their traditions--histories imbued
With tales of war and sanguinary feud,
Yet though they never couched the knightly lance,
The glowing songs of Europe's old romance
Can find their parallels amid the race,
Which, on this spot, met England face to face.
And when they met the white man, hand to hand,
Twilight and sunrise stood upon the strand--
Twilight and sunrise? Saxon sunshine gleams
To-day o'er prairies and those distant streams,
Which hurry onward through far Western plains,
Where the last Indian, for a season, reigns.
Here, the red CANUTE on this spot, sat down,
His splendid forehead stormy with a frown,
To quell, with the wild lightning of his glance
The swift encroachment of the wave's advance;
To meet and check the ruthless tide which rose,
Crest after crest of energetic foes,
While high and strong poured on each cruel wave,
Until they left his royalty--a grave;
But, o'er this wild, tumultuous deluge glows
A vision fair as Heaven to saint e'er shows;
A dove of mercy o'er the billows dark
Fluttered awhile then fled within God's ark.
Had I the power, I'd reverently describe
That peerless maid--the "pearl of all her tribe,"
As evening fair, when coming night and day
Contend together which shall wield its sway.
But, here abashed, my paltry fancy stays;
For her, too humble its most stately lays.
A shade of twilight's softest, sweetest gloom--
The dusk of morning--found a splendid tomb
In England's glare; so strange, so vast, so bright,
The dusk of morning burst in splendid light,
Which falleth through the Past's cathedral aisles,
Till sculptured Mercy like a seraph smiles.
And though Fame's grand and consecrated fane
No kingly statue may, in time, retain,
_Her_ name shall linger, nor with age grow faint;
Its simple sound--the image of a saint.

Sad is the story of that maiden's race,
Long driven from each legendary place.
All their expansive hunting-grounds are now
Torn by the iron of the Saxon's plough,
Which turns up skulls and arrow-heads and bones--
Their places nameless and unmarked by stones.
Now freighted vessels toil along the view,
Where once was seen the Indian's bark canoe;
And to the woods the shrill escaping steam
Proclaims our triumph in discordant scream.
Where rose the wigwam in its sylvan shade,
Where the bold hunter in his freedom strayed,
And met his foe or chased the bounding stag,
The lazy horses at the harrow lag.
Where the rude dance was held or war-song rose,
The scene is one of plenty and repose.
The quiver of her race is empty now,
Its bow lies broken underneath the plough;
And where the wheat-fields ripple in the gale,
The vanished hunter scarcely leaves a trail.
'Twas where yon river musically flows,
The European's nomenclature rose;
A keen-edged axe, which since, alas! has swept
Away their names--those boughs, which blossoms kept,
Leaving so few, that when their story's drowned,
'Twill sink, alas! with no fair garland crowned.
What strange vicissitudes and perils fell
On the first settlers 'tis not mine to tell;
I scarce may pause to syllable the name
Which the great Captain left behind to fame;
A name which echoes through the tented past
Like sound of charge rung in a bugle's blast.
His age, although it still put faith in stars,
No longer glanced through feudal helmet's bars,
But stood in its half armor; thus stands he
An image half of antique chivalry,
And half presented to our eager eyes,
The brilliant type of modern enterprise.
A knightly blade, without one spot of rust,
Undimmed by time and undefaced by dust,
His name hangs up in that past age's hall,
Where many hang, the brightest of them all.

AN ELEGIAC ODE.[6]

* * * * *

He chastens us as nations and as men,
He smites us sore until our pride doth yield,
And hence our heroes, each with hearts for ten,
Were vanquished in the field;

And stand to-day beneath our Southern sun
O'erthrown in battle and despoiled of hope,
Their drums all silent and their cause undone,
And they all left to grope

In darkness till God's own appointed time
In His own manner passeth fully by.
Our Penance this. His Parable sublime
Means we must learn to die.

Not as our soldiers died beneath their flags,
Not as in tumult and in blood they fell,
When from their columns, clad in homely rags,
Rose the Confederate yell.

Not as they died, though never mortal men
Since Tubal Cain first forged his cruel blade
Fought as they fought, nor ever shall agen
Such Leader be obeyed!

No, not as died our knightly, soldier dead,
Though they, I trust, have found above surcease
For all life's troubles, but on Christian bed
Should we depart in peace,

Falling asleep like those whose gentle deeds
Are governed through time's passions and its strife,
So justly that we might erect new creeds
From each well ordered life,

Whose saintly lessons are so framed that we
May learn that pain is but a text sublime,
Teaching us how to learn at Sorrow's knee
To value things of time.

Thus thinking o'er life's promise-breaking dreams,
Its lights and shadows made of hopes and fears,
I say that Death is kinder than he seems,
And not the King of Tears.

[Footnote: 6: It may not be out of place to state that this ode was written at the express and urgent request of the ladies of Warren county, North Carolina, and recited by the author, August 8th, 1866, on the occasion of the completion of the monument, erected by the ladies of Warren county, over the ashes of Miss Annie Carter Lee, who was the daughter of General Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis Lee; born at Arlington, Va., June 18th, 1839, and died at the White Sulphur Springs, Warren county, North Carolina, October 20th, 1862. The monument was unveiled in the presence of a great concourse of people, and with Major-Generals G.W.C. Lee and W.H.F. Lee, in attendance, as representatives of their family.]

THE CADETS AT NEW MARKET.[7]

* * * * *

Their sleep is made glorious,
And dead they're victorious
Over defeat!
Never Lethean billows
Shall roll o'er their pillows,
Red with the feet
Of Mars from the wine press
So bitterly sweet!

Sleeping, but glorious,
Dead in Fame's portal,
Dead, but victorious,
Dead, but immortal!
They gave us great glory,
What more could they give?
They have left us a story,
A story to live--
And blaze on the brows of the State like a crown,
While from these grand mountains the rivers run down,
While grass grows in graveyards, or the Ocean's deep calls,
Their deeds and their glory shall fresco these walls.

[Footnote 7: Delivered at Virginia Military Institute, 1870.]

OUR HEROIC DEAD.

I.

A King once said of a Prince struck down,
"Taller he seems in death."
And this speech holds truth, for now as then
'Tis after death that we measure men,
And as mists of the past are rolled away
Our heroes, who died in their tattered grey,
Grow "taller" and greater in all their parts
Till they fill our minds as they fill our hearts.
And for those who lament them there's this relief--
That Glory sits by the side of Grief,
Yes, they grow "taller" as the years pass by
And the World learns how they could do and die.

II.

A Nation respects them. The East and West,
The far-off slope of the Golden Coast,
The stricken South and the North agree
That the heroes who died for you and me--
Each valiant man, in his own degree,
Whether he fell on the shore or sea,
Did deeds of which
This Land, though rich
In histories may boast,
And the Sage's Book and the Poet's Lay
Are full of the deeds of the Men in Grey.

III.

No lion cleft from the rock is ours,
Such as Lucerne displays,
Our only wealth is in tears and flowers,
And words of reverent praise.
And the Roses brought to this silent Yard
Are Red and White. Behold!

They tell how wars for a kingly crown,
In the blood of England's best writ down,
Left Britain a story whose moral old
Is fit to be graven in text of gold:
The moral is, that when battles cease
The ramparts smile in the blooms of peace.

And flowers to-day were hither brought
From the gallant men who against us fought;
York and Lancaster!--Grey and Blue!
Each to itself and the other true--
And so I say
Our Men in Grey
Have left to the South and North a tale
Which none of the glories of Earth can pale.