J. B. H.

“ GOD and our consciences alone
Give us measure of right and wrong;
The race may fall unto the swift
And the battle to the strong:
But the truth will shine in history
And blossom into song.
Human grief full oft by glory
Is assuaged and disappears
When its requiem swells with music
Like the shock of shields and spears,
And its passion is too full of pride
To leave a space for tears.
And hence to-day, my Countrymen,
We come, with undimmed eyes,
In homage of the hero Lee,
The good, the great, the wise!
And at his name our hearts will leap
Till his last old soldier dies. ”

“ And where they fought no shadow fell on Old Virginia's crest.
Rags in cold, bare feet in marches never turned your children back;
In retreat they loved the rearguard, in advance they loved attack!
Oh, my brothers! I see figures which all flit athwart my brain,
Like the torches lit by lightning in some tempest-driven rain,
And above the rushing vision, in my soul I hear the cry:
"Those who fell for Home and Duty left us names that cannot die!"
First, before the sleeping warriors, comes a gentle woman's face,
Every mark Time made upon it seemed to add a Christian grace. ”

“ A Master at your head, Mahone's Brigade.
O Countrymen! I see the coming days
When he, above all hinderances and lets
Shall stand in Epic form, lit by the rays
Of Fame's eternal sun that never sets,
The first great chapter of his life is made,
And spoken in two words—"Mahone's Brigade."
O Countrymen! I see historic brass
Leap from the furnace in a blazing tide;
I see it through strange transformations pass
Into a form of energy and pride;
Beneath our Capitol's majestic shade
In bronze I see Mahone—Mahone's Brigade.
O Countrymen! When dust has gone to dust. ”

“ 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! ”

“ France's colors wave again
High above this tented plain,
Stream and flaunt, and blaze and shine,
O'er the banner-painted brine,
Float and flow!
And the brazen trumpets blow
While upon her serried lines,
Full the light of Freedom shines
In a broad, effulgent glow.
And here this day I see
The fairest dream that ever yet
Was dreamt by History!
As in cadence, and in time,
To the martial throb and rhyme
Of her bugles and her drums
Forth a stately vision comes—
Comes majestically slow—
Comes a fair and stately vision of
One hundred years ago!
Welcome to France! ”

“ And taking both of Freedom and of Fame
Full seisin with her hands.
V. WELCOME TO FRANCE. But, in that fiery zone
She upriseth not alone,
Over all the bloody fields
Glitter Amazonian shields;
While through the mists of years
Another form appears,
And as I bow my head
Already you have said:—
'Tis France!
Welcome to France!
From sea to sea,
With heart and hand!
Welcome to all within the land—
Thrice welcome let her be!
And to France
The Union here to-day
Gives the right of this array,
And folds her to her breast
As the friend that she loves best.
Yes to France. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Like Baldur, the fair and blameless, the Goth's God of the Light!
XIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. As some spent gladiator, struck by Death,
Whose reeling vision scarce a foe defines,
For one last effort gathers all his breath,
England draws in her lines.
Her blood-red flag floats out full fair, but flows
O'er crumbling bastions, in fictitious state:
Who stands a siege Cornwallis full well knows,
Plays at a game with Fate.
Siege means surrender at the bitter end,
From Ilium downward such the sword-made rule,
With few exceptions, few indeed amend
This law in any school! ”

“ England and France, as Allies, side by side
Fought on the Pieho's melancholy tide,
And there, brave Tattnall, ere the fight was done,
Stirred English hearts as far as shone the sun,
Or tides and billows in their courses run.
That day, 'mid the dark Pieho's slaughter
He said: "Blood is thicker than water!"
And your true man though "brayed in a mortar"
At feast, or at fray
Will still feel it and say
As he said: "Blood is thicker than water!"
And full homely is the saying but this story always starts
An answer from ten thousand times ten thousand kindred hearts. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Your Leader, or your men, Mahone's Brigade.
VI. That splendid Leader's name is yours, and he
Flesh of your flesh, himself bone of your bone,
His simple name maketh a history,
Which stands, itself grand, glorious and alone,
Or, 'tis a trophy, splendidly arrayed,
With all your battle-flags, Mahone's Brigade.
His name itself a history? Yes, and none
May halt me here. In war and peace
It challenges the full rays of the sun ”

“ 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. ”

“ Long live the Gallic Army and long live splendid France,
The Power that gives to History the beauty of Romance!
Upon our right commanded one dearer by far than all,
The hero who first came to us and came without a call;
Whose name with that of his leader all histories entwine,
The one as is the mighty oak, the other as the vine ”

“ So our mighty Lee and Stonewall—greater names no era boasts—
Shall exalt their Shades forever o'er the grand Confederate Hosts!
'Twas not glory that they fought for through those weary years of
pain
Though the glory fell upon them as it ne'er may fall again.
That sentiment inspired them which lifts men to make them great,
Love of hearthstone, friends, and neighbors, and devotion to the State.
Not as rebels but as warriors they sent forth their famous cry—
Not as traitors but as freemen they went forth to do or die! ”

“ Broke o'er the English right redoubt a steel-encrested wave.
St. Simon from his sick couch rose, wooed by the battle's charms,
And like a knight of old romance went to the shock of arms.
[But they who bore the muskets, who went charging thro' the flame,
Deserve far more than ever will be given them by Fame—
Then let us pour libations out!—full freely let them flow
For the men who bore the muskets here a century ago!] ”

“ Upon the scene, and all are worthy France!
And for those Frenchmen and their splendid bands,
The very Centuries shall clap their hands,
While at their head, as all their banners flow,
And all their drums roll out, and trumpets blow,
Rides first and foremost splendid Rochambeau!
And well he rides, worthy an epic rhyme—
Full well he rides in attitude sublime—
Fair Freedom's Champion in the lists of Time. ”

“ His own roof-tree looked down upon James Barron Hope at his best and down upon a home in the sacred sense of the word, for he touched with poetry the prose of daily living, and left to those who loved him the blessed legacy of a memory which death cannot take from them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ No sketch could approach justice toward Captain Hope without at least a brief review of his domestic life.
In 1857 he had married Miss Annie Beverly Whiting of Hampton. Hers were the face and form to take captive his poet's fancy, and she possessed a character as lovely as her person; a courage and strength of will far out of proportion to her dainty shape, and an intellect of masculine robustness. ”

“ Then 'twas our coast all bore Virginia's name;
Next North Virginia took its separate place,
And grew by slow degrees in wealth and fame
And Freedom's special grace.
[Footnote 11: Hugh Blair Grigsby, L.L.D., Chancellor of William and Mary College, and President of the Virginia Historical Society, Scholar and Historian, died on the day on which he received a gift of flowers from his life-long friend, Mr. Winthrop, and these literally gladdened the dying eyes of the noble gentleman whose loss will long be deplored by all who knew him, whether they live in Virginia or Massachusetts.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A sound as tho' the dreaming drums were talking in their sleep.
"Fall in! Fall in!" The stormers form, in silence, stern and grim,
Each heart full-beating out the time to Freedom's battle hymn.—
"Charge! en Avant!"—The word goes forth and forth the stormers go,
Each column like a mighty shaft shot from a mighty bow. ”

“ True to his battle-flag, Mahone's Brigade.
Could some Supreme Intelligence proclaim,
Arise from all the pomp of rank and grade,
War's truest heroes, oft we'd hear some name,
Unmentioned by the world, Mahone's Brigade. ”

“ The one the staff, the other the great banner on its lance—
Now, need I name the dearest name of all the names of France?
Oh, Marquis brave! Upon this shaft, deep-cut thy cherished name
Twin Old Mortalities shall find—fond Gratitude and Fame!
THE TWO LEADERS. Two chieftains watch the battle's tide and listen as it rolls
And only HEAVEN above can tell the tumult of their souls!
Cornwallis saw the British power struck down by one fell blow,
A Gallic spearhead on the lance that laid the Lion low. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Not a single sword-blade wetting
As the battle ebbed and flowed.
Now the fevered spell is broken,
Every man feels twice as large,
Every heart is fiercely leaping,
As a lion roused from sleeping,
For they know they will be sweeping
In a moment to the charge.
Brightly gleam six hundred sabres,
And the brazen trumpets ring;
Steeds are gathered, spurs are driven,
And the heavens widely riven
With a mad shout upward given,
Scaring vultures on the wing. ”

“ Your tattered folds with one unworthy deed,
O glorious flags! No country shall again
Fly nobler symbols in its hour of need.
Success stained not, nor could defeat degrade;
Spotless they float to-day, Mahone's Brigade. ”