Chapter 6

Henry is there beneath his civic crown; He speaks in words that thunder as they flow, And as he speaks his thunder-tones bring down An avalanche below!

Nor does John Adams in the picture lag, He was as bold, as resolute, and free, As is the eagle on a misty crag Above a stormy sea.

And 'mid his fellows in those days of need, Impassioned Jefferson burns like a sun, The New World's Prophet of the New World's Creed-- Prophet and Priest in one!

These two together stood in our great past, When Independence flamed across the land; On Independence Day these two at last Departed hand in hand.

And they are taken by a patriot's mind As kindred types of our great Saxon stock, And that same thinker hopes some day to find Both statues in one block.[12]

But, here I number splendid names too fast, Heroes and Sages throng behind this group, And thick they come as came in Homer's past A Goddess and her troop;

And as that troop, 'mid frays and fell alarms, Swept, all a-glitter, on their mission bent, And bore from Vulcan the resplendent arms To great Achilles sent,

So came the names that light my pious Song-- Came bearing Union forged in high debates-- A sun-illuminated Shield, and strong, To guard these mighty States.

The Shield sent to the son of Peleus glowed With hammered wonders, all without a flaw; The Shield of Union in its splendor showed The Compromise of Law.

And as the Epic lifts a form sublime For all the Ages on its plinth of gold, So does our Story, challenging all time, Its crowning shape uphold!

[Footnote 12: This fine idea is borrowed from one of the addresses of Mr. Winthrop, the orator of the occasion.]

XVII.

PATER PATRAE.

Achilles came from Homer's Jove-like brain, Pavilioned 'mid his ships where Thetis trod; But he whose image dominates this plain Came from the hand of God!

Yet, of his life, which shall all time adorn I dare not sing; to try the theme would be To drink as 'twere that Scandinavian Horn Whose tip was in the Sea.

I bow my head and go upon my ways, Who tells that story can but gild the gold-- Could I pile Alps on Apennines of praise The tale would not be told.

Not his the blade which lyric fables say Cleft Pyrenees from ridge to nether bed, But his the sword which cleared the Sacred Way For Freedom's feet to tread.

Not Caesar's genius nor Napoleon's skill Gave him proud mast'ry o'er the trembling earth; But great in honesty, and sense and will-- He was the "man of worth."

He knew not North, nor South, nor West, nor East: Childless himself, Father of States he stood, Strong and sagacious as a Knight turned Priest, And vowed to deeds of good.

Compared with all Earth's heroes I may say He was, with even half his virtues hid, Greater in what his hand refrained than they Were great in what they did.

And thus his image dominates all time, Uplifted like the everlasting dome Which rises in a miracle sublime Above eternal Rome.

On Rome's once blooming plain where'er we stray That dome majestic rises on the view, Its Cross a-glow with every wandering ray That shines along the Blue.

So his vast image shadows all the lands, So holds forever Man's adoring eye, And o'er the Union which he left it stands Our Cross against the sky!

XVIII.

THE FLAG OF THE REPUBLIC.

My harp soon ceases; but I here allege Its strings are in my heart and tremble there: My Song's last strain shall be a claim and pledge-- A claim, a pledge, a prayer!

I stand, as stood, in storied days of old, Vasco Balboa staring o'er bright seas When fair Pacific's tide of limpid gold Surged up against his knees.

For haughty Spain, her banner in his hand, He claimed a New World, sea, and plain, and crag-- I claim the Future's Ocean for this land And here I plant her flag!

Float out, oh flag, from Freedom's burnished lance! Float out, oh flag, in Red, and White, and Blue! The Union's colors and the hues of France Commingled on the view!

Float out, oh flag, and all thy splendors wake! Float out, oh flag, above our Hero's bed! Float out, oh flag, and let thy blazon take New glories from the dead!

Float out, oh flag, o'er Freedom's noblest types! Float out, oh flag, all free of blot or stain! Float out, oh flag, the "Roses" in thy stripes Forever blent again!

Float out, oh flag, and float in every clime! Float out, oh flag, and blaze on every sea! Float out, oh flag, and float as long as Time And Space themselves shall be!

Float out, oh flag, o'er Freedom's onward march! Float out, oh flag, in Freedom's starry sheen! Float out, oh flag, above the Union's arch Where Washington is seen!

Float out, oh flag, above a smiling Land! Float out, oh flag, above a peaceful sod! Float out, oh flag, thy staff within the hand Beneficent of God!

XIX.

THE SOUTH IN THE UNION.

An ancient Chronicle has told That, in the famous days of old, In Antioch under ground The self-same lance was found-- Unbitten by corrosive rust-- The lance the Roman soldier thrust In CHRIST'S bare side upon the Tree; And that it brought A mighty spell To those who fought The Infidel And mighty victory.

And so this day To you I say-- Speaking for millions of true Southern men-- In words that have no undertow-- I say, and say agen: Come weal, or woe, Should this Republic ever fight, By land, or sea, For present law, or ancient right The South will be As was that lance, Albeit not found Hid under ground But in the forefront of the first advance!

'Twill fly a pennon fair As ever kissed the air, On it, for every glance, Shall blaze majestic France Blent with our Hero's name In everlasting flame, And written, fair in gold, This legend on its fold: Give us back the ties of Yorktown! Perish all the modern hates! Let us stand together, brothers, In defiance of the Fates; FOR THE SAFETY OF THE UNION IS THE SAFETY OF THE STATES!

TO ALEXANDER GALT, THE SCULPTOR.

Alas! he's cold! Cold as the marble which his fingers wrought-- Cold, but not dead; for each embodied thought Of his, which he from the Ideal brought To live in stone, Assures him immortality of fame.

Galt is not dead! Only too soon We saw him climb Up to his pedestal, where equal Time And coming generations, in the noon Of his full reputation, yet shall stand To pay just homage to his noble name.

Our Poet of the Quarries only sleeps, He cleft his pathway up the future's steeps, And now rests from his labors.

Hence 'tis I say; For him there is no death, Only the stopping of the pulse and breath-- But simple breath is not the all in all; Man hath it but in common with the brutes-- Life is in action and in brave pursuits! By what we dream, and having dreamt, dare do, We hold our places in the world's large view, And still have part in the affairs of men When the long sleep is on us.

He dreamt and made his dreams perpetual things Fit for the rugged cell of penitential saints, Or sumptuous halls of Kings, And showed himself a Poet in the Art: He chiselled Lyrics with a touch so fine, With such a tender beauty of their own, That rarest songs broke out from every line And verse was audible in voiceless stone! His Psyche, soft in beauty and in grace, Waits for her lover in the Western breeze, And a swift smile irradiates her face, As though she heard him whisper in the trees.

His passion-stricken Sappho seems alive-- Before her none can ever feel alone, For on her face emotions so do strive That we forget she is but pallid stone; And all her tragedy of love and woe Is told us in the chilly marble's snow.

Bacchante, with her vine-crowned hair, Leaps to the cymbal-measured dance With such a passion in her air-- Upon her brow--upon her lips-- As thrills you to the finger-tips, And fascinates your glance.

These are, as 'twere, three of his Songs in stone-- The first full of the tenderness of love, Speaking of moon-rise, and the low wind's call: The second of love's tragedy and fall; The third of shrill, mad laughter, and the tone Of festal music, on whose rise and fall Swift-footed dancers follow.

Nobler than these sweet lyric dreams, Dreamt out beside Italia's streams, He'd worked some Epic studies out, in part-- To leave them incomplete his chiefest pain When the low pulses of his failing heart Admonished him of death.

Ay! he had soared upon a lofty wing, Wet with the purple and encrimsoned rain Of dreams, whose clouds had floated o'er his brain Until it ached with glories.

If you would see his Epic studies, go-- Go with the student from his dim arcade-- Halt where the Statesman standeth in the hall, And mark how careless voices hush and fall, And all light talk to sudden pause is brought In presence of the noble type of thought-- Embodied Independence which he wrought From stone of far Carrara.

View his Columbus: Hero grand and meek, Scarred 'mid the battle's long-protracted brunt-- Palos and Salvador stamped on his front, With not a line about it, poor or weak-- A second Atlas, bearing on his brow A New World, just discovered.

Go see Virginia's wise, majestic face With some faint shadow of her coming woe Writ on the broad, expansive, virgin snow Of her imperial forehead, just as though Some disembodied Prophet-hand of eld The Sculptor's chisel in its touch had held, Foreshadowing her coming crown of thorns-- Her crown and her great glory! These of the many; but they are enough-- Enough to show that I have rightly said The marble's snow bids back from him decay, He sleepeth long; but sleeps not with the dead Who die, and are forgotten ere the clay Heaped over them hath hardened in the sun.

This much of Galt, the Artist: Of the man Fain would I speak, but in sad sooth I can Ne'er find the words wherein to tell How he was loved, or yet how well He did deserve it. All things of beauty were to him delight-- The sunset's clouds--the turret rent apart-- The stars which glitter in the noon of night-- Spoke in one voice unto his mind and heart, His love of Nature made his love of Art, And had his span Of life been longer He had surely done Such noble things that he Like to a soaring eagle would have been At last--lost in the sun!

TO THE POET-PRIEST RYAN.

_IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF A COPY OF HIS POEMS_.

Himself I read beneath the words he writes ... I may come back and sing again.--RYAN.

I.

This Bard's to me a whole-souled man In honesty and might, For when he sees Wrong in the van He leaps like any Knight To horse, and charging on the wrong Smites it with the great sword of Song.

II.

Beneath the cassock of the Priest There throbs another heart-- Another--but 'tis not the least-- Which in his Lays takes part, So that 'mid clash of Swords and Spears There is no lack of Pity's tears.

III.

This other heart is brave and soft, As such hearts always are, And plumes itself, a bird aloft, When Morning's gates unbar-- Till high it soars above the sod Bathed in the very light of God.

IV.

Woman and Soldier, Priest and Man, I find within these Lays, And the closer still th' Verse I scan The more I see to praise: Some of these Lyrics shower down The glories of the Cross and Crown.

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.

II.

Who shall blame the social order Which gave us men as great as these? Who condemn the soil of t' forest Which bring forth gigantic trees? Who presume to doubt that Providence Shapes out our destinies?

Fore-ordained, and long maturing, Came the famous men of old: In the dark mines deep were driven Down the shafts to reach the gold, And the story is far longer Than the histories have told.

From Bacon down to Washington The generations passed, Great events and moving causes Were in serried order massed: Berkeley well was first confronted, Better George the King at last!

From the time of that stern ruler To our own familiar days Long the pathway we have trodden, Hard, and devious were its ways Till at last there came the second Mightier Revolution's blaze:

Till at last there broke the tempest Like a cyclone on the sea, When the lightnings blazed and dazzled And the thunders were set free-- And riding on that whirlwind came Majestic, Robert Lee!

Who--again I ask the question-- Who may challenge in debate, With any show of truthfulness, Our former social state Which brought forth more than heroes In their lives supremely great?

Not Peter, the wild Crusader, When bent upon his knee, Not Arthur and his belted knights, In the Poet's Song, could be More earnest than those Southern men Who followed Robert Lee.

They thought that they were right and this Was hammered into those Who held that crest all drenched in blood Where the "Bloody Angle" rose. As for all else? It passes by As the idle wind that blows.

III.

Then stand up, oh my Countrymen! And unto God give thanks, On mountains, and on hillsides And by sloping river banks-- Thank God that you were worthy Of the grand Confederate ranks:

That you who came from uplands And from beside the sea, Filled with love of Old Virginia And the teachings of the free, May boast in sight of all men That you followed Robert Lee.

Peace has come. God give his blessing On the fact and on the name! The South speaks no invective And she writes no word of blame; But we call all men to witness That we stand up without shame.