A r m ist e ^d COi o rdon THE GIFT OF MAY TREAT MORRISON IN MEMORY OF ALEXANDER F MORRISON FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM Poems of Commemoration BY ARMISTEAD C. GORDON RECTOR, UNIVERSITY VIRGINIA; AUTHOR, THE IVORY GATE," ROBIN AROON," AND WILLIAM FITZ- HUGK GORDON : HIS LIFE, TIMES AND CONTEMPORARIES," ALL PUB LISHED BY THIS HOUSE NEW YORK AND WASHINOTOK THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1910 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY First published in December of 1910 PS 3 SI A limited edition of two hundred copies of this book, containing five of the ten poems now in cluded in it, was published in 1898, and has long been out of print. 42779O TO LIEUT.-COLONEL EAWLEY W. MAETIN OF THE 53ED VIRGINIA REGIMENT, WHO LED THE CONFEDERATE LINE OVER THE STONE WALL IN PICKETT S CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG, JULY 3, 1863. To him who through the summer sunshine led, As to a bridal, an immortal line Up those wild heights, whose feet were first to tread The wine-press of that passion; a divine And dazzling glory that shall deathless shine Across the years for those whoso, spirits stir, What time they see in memory Armistead With hat on sabre leap the wall, and hear The cannon s thunderous roar drowned in the charging cheer. CONTENTS PAGE THE GARDEN or DEATH 15 EOSES OF MEMORY 21 "PRO MONUMENTO" 27 THE FOSTERING MOTHER 35 MOSBT S MEN 43 VITAI LAMPADA 49 THE STONEWALL BRIGADE 57 FOR A SOLDIER 61 NEW MARKET: A THRENODY 65 LOST CAUSES: L ENVOI 73 THE GAKDEN OF DEATH " The grief that circled his brows with a crown of thorns was also that which wreathed them with the splendor of immortality." SAVONAROLA. Eead at the unveiling of the Confederate Monument in Thornrose Cemetery, Staunton, Virginia, September 25. 1888. THE GABDEN OF DEATH I Where are they who marched away, Sped with smiles that changed, to tears,- Grlittering lines of steel and gray Moving down the battle s way Where are they these many years? Garlands wreathed their shining swords; They were girt about with cheers, Children s lispings, women s words, Sunshine and the songs of birds. They are gone so many years. " Lo ! beyond their brave array Freedom s august dawn appears : " Thus we said : " The brighter day Breaks above that line of gray." Where are they these many years? All our hearts went with them there, All our love, and all our prayers. What of them? How do they fare, They who went to do and dare, And are gone so many years? 15 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM What of them who went away, Followed by our hopes and fears? Braver never marched than they, Closer ranks to fiercer fray. Where are they these many years? II Borne upon the Spartan shield, Home returned that brave array From the blood-stained battle-field They might neither win nor yield. That is all, and here are they. That is all. The soft sky bends O er them, lapped in earth away; Her benignest influence lends, Dews and rains and radiance sends Down upon them, night and day. Over them the Springtide weaves All the verdure of her May; Past them drift the sombre leaves, When the heart of Autumn grieves O er their slumbers. What care they? What care they, who failed to win Guerdon of that splendid day 16 Freedom s day they saw begin, But that, mid the battle s din, Faded in eclipse away? All is gone for them. They gave All for naught. It was their way Where they loved. They died to save "What was lost. The fight was brave. That is all; and here are they. Ill Is that all? Was Duty naught? Love, and Faith made blind with tears? What the lessons that they taught? What the glory that they caught From the onward sweeping years? Here are they who marched away Followed by our hopes and fears; Nobler never went than they To a bloodier, madder fray, In the lapse of all the years. Garlands still shall wreathe the swords That they drew amid our cheers: Children s lispings, women s words, Sunshine, and the songs of birds Greet them here through all the years. 17 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM With them ever shall abide All our love and all our prayers. "What of them?" The battle s tide Hath not scathed them. Lo! they ride Still with Stuart down the years. "Where are they who went away, Sped with smiles that changed to tears ? " Lee yet leads the lines of gray, Stonewall still rides down this way. They are Fame s through all the years ! 18 ROSES OF MEMORY " On every ragged gray cap the Lord God Al mighty laid the sword of His imperishable knight hood." HENRY WOODFIN GRADY. Read before the Pickett-Buchanan Camp of Confederate Veterans, at Norfolk, Virginia, on Memorial Day, June 19, 1890. EOSES OF MEMORY A rose s crimson stain A rose s stainless white Fitly become the immortal slain Who fell in the great fight. When Armistead died amid his foes, Girt by the rebel cheer, God plucked a soul like a white rose, In June time o the year. The blood in Pickett s heart Was of a ruddier hue Than the reddest bloom whose petals part To welcome heaven s dew. I think the fairest flowers that blow Should greet the life-stream shed In that historic long ago By this historic dead. The immemorial years Such valor never knew, As poured a flood of crimson blood At Gettysburg with you. Living and dead, in faith the same, I see you on that height, Crowned with the rosy wreath of fame, Won in the fatal fight. FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM Not these had made afraid King Arthur s mystic sword Not Bayard s most chivalric blade, Nor Gideon s, for the Lord. Yours was the strain of high emprise, Yours the unfaltering faith, The honor lofty as the skies, The duty strong as death. When Douglas flung the heart Of Bruce amid his foes, And said : " He leads. We do not part : I follow where he goes" ; No mightier impulse stirred his soul Than that which up yon, height Moved you with Pickett toward the goal Of freedom in that fight. The fair goal was not won, The famous fight was lost; But never shone the allseeing sun On more heroic host. Your deeds of mighty prowess shame All deeds of derring-do With which Time s bloody pages flame. Hail and farewell to you! FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM Unto the dead farewell ! They are hid in the dark and cold; And the broken shaft and the roses tell What is left of the tale untold. They are deaf to the martial music s call Till a judgment dawn shall break, When the trumpet of Truth shall proclaim to all: " They perished, for my sake ! " Let them be quiet here Where birds and blossoms be; And hail to you, who bring the tear And the rose of memory To water and deck each lowly grave Of those, who in God s sight With loyal hearts their hearts blood gave For the eternal right! Alike for low and high The roses white and red: For valor and honor cannot die, And they were of these dead. The private in his jacket of gray, And the general with his star, The Lord God knighted alike that day, In the red front of War. 23 "PRO MONTJMENTO SUPER MILITES INTEREMPTOS " " Gladly we should rest ever, had we won Freedom: we have lost, and very gladly rest" ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Head at the unveiling of the Monument to the Private Soldiers and Sailors of the Confederacy at Richmond, Virginia, May 30, 1894. "PRO MONUMENTO" Since that spring morning when the first dread gun Boomed o er the harbor of the seaport town, Fired by Virginia s lion-hearted son Who would not live to see his flag go down, Long years have passed away, Youth s gold has turned to gray; The old men fade and die; the young age day by day. But ere pale Death shall stand with equal feet Hard by each door the door of old or young, That glory can be wrested from defeat Let an " lo Triumphe!" here be sung, Yielding the meed of praise Of laurels and green bays To young and old alike who fought in those lost days. Brighter than any born of time or fate More beautiful than e er beheld of men Fronting the nations stood the fair young State, And "Rebel" was the splendid badge again 27 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM Worn by the sons of those Whom Freedom s feudal foes Had learned to bow before when Washington arose. They gathered round her beautiful bright form, With glittering bayonets fixed to ready guns, Stirred by that passion Liberty keeps warm In every pulse of all her patriot sons, Offering upon her shrine The sacrifice divine Of Love; and each man swore, "Her holy cause is mine ! " Her cause was theirs and Freedom s. For such cause Men have died gladly since that ancient day When the Three Hundred gave a Myriad pause For Grecian freedom at Thermopylae. These drew the Spartan sword; These knew the Spartan word: " With it, or on it!" These the Spartan spirit stirred. On the most glowing page of human story Are writ in lines of light their deathless names. Our heritage is their eternal glory, Their record of undying deeds is Fame s. 28 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM The immemorial roll Of her resplendent scroll Their honor and their valor shall extol. O er that first field, made red with their first blood, Rang through the tumult as a bugle-call His kingly voice, who royally bestowed On Jackson s soldiers " standing like a wall " The battle-accolade, Knighting the great Brigade, And him who at its head had drawn his sword and prayed. Booted and spurred, his troopers riding ever Ready for the fierce fray, entwined around His brows the laurel-leaves that made forever Thenceforth the name of Stuart glory-crowned : They followed where he led; They conquered where he bled; Gladly had each one died in the lost leader s stead. Can you not hear booming across the years The thunderous echoes of young Pelham s guns? There went to war than her red cannoneers None higher-hearted of the South s true sons. 29 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM Whatever else betide, Down the dim years they ride, Who joyous rode to death as bridegroom to his bride. Beyond the vast of time we can descry In memory the white foam and the sweep Of the great ram, Virginia; and on high The Southern pennant fluttering o er the deep; And hear the sullen roar Of the grim guns she bore Proclaiming Freedom s fight from listening shore to shore. In many a battle on the wandering wave The sailors whom this shaft commemorates Wrote high on Glory s record that the brave Who fall for Freedom sleep at Freedom s gates; That after life lived free, Life lost for Liberty Is God s most gracious gift that hath been or shall be. For Freedom ! aye ! for Freedom ! Twas this hope That sent the steady, steel-tipped line of gray, Fringed with hell s fires, up the steep slippery slope Of Gettysburg, on that most fateful day 30 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM That found our pathway crossed By an outnumbering host; That witnessed high hopes flown; that saw the dear Cause lost. Unfaltering in their grave fidelity, Steadfast in purpose to the bitter end, They closed thin ranks, and set brave eyes to see And dauntless hearts to bear what Fate should send ; Not looking vainly back Along the traversed track, But facing War s last blast, its hurricane and wrack. When came the bitter end, the bugle blew Its last sad note, that brought the blinding tears Down wasted cheeks from eyes that only knew Honor and Death through all the weary years. The long hard fight was done ; Silenced was every gun; And what we lost, e en now they do not dream, who won. Let not the worth of any such be weighed By battle s balance. They who glorified Their righteous cause and lived, and they who made The sacrifice supreme, in that they died 31 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM To keep their country free, Alike gave men to see What hero-hearts were theirs who thus loved Liberty ! They did their duty in the leal fearless fashion Of antique knighthood s flower, each man a knight, Careless if Death, dividing peace from passion, Whispering, should greet them in the roar of fight- Or Life to ceaseless pain Should lead them! forth again; Knowing that duty done is never done in vain. Time shall not dim their memory. The web The spider weaves may hang across the mouth Of the dismantled cannon; and the ebb And flow of erstwhile battle in the South Be but the shadowy gleam Of a long vanished dream; But ever over all this shaft shall loom supreme, Silently telling in majestic beauty Through all the years the story of their faith, Their love of Truth, of Freedom and of Duty Transcendent Love, triumphant over Death. Harm now can reach them never: Their fame is sure forever While stands the sacred Hill, or flows the shining River. THE FOSTEEING MOTHEE And ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free." JOHN viii. 32. Bead June 14, 1898, at the dedication of the new buildings of the University of Virginia, re placing those destroyed by fire October 27, 1895. THE FOSTERING MOTHER The dawn of summer breaks in beauty o er her, Crowned Queen, and seated on her throne once more; Gather again her children to adore her, To hail her soul-compelling as of yore, Where she sits girdled with an olden glory, Turning the latest page of her illumined story : An open book that he who runs may read, Annals of patience, courage, sacrifice, Blazoned with lofty thought and splendid deed, Science and song and battle s great emprise; Scroll of the intellect s majestic sway; Scripture of hope and faith that shall not fade away. One name, before which none in all time ever Hath been or shall be, shining there is writ: Worker of Revolutions, mighty giver Of Freedom s Charter, and the Voice of it. When kingdoms shake, and iron empires fall, Through multitudinous time shall ring the clarion call 36 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM Of the eternal lesson that he taught: " The gift of God is Freedom." Never gift, In all the ages with His promise fraught, Hath been bestowed like this one to uplift Mortality to godhood, and to light Man s pathway through the years till Time be put to flight. It is the gift of God. Philosophy Might not devise it; art might never limn Its beauty; in the realm of poesy It were undreamed of, were it not of Him. Science, whose feet are with the lightnings shod, Had never found it; for it is the gift of God. And when the nations arm them for the fray With hearts of fire and force of triple steel, To test the durance on some fateful day Of Tyranny or Freedom, they shall feel Whether on blood-drenched sod or wandering wave, The conquest theirs who know its sovereign strength to save. Let us rejoice, then, that upon her scroll, Whereon our Mother reads the unfettered creed, The sacrificial courage of the soul, 36 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM The untrammeled thought that works the deathless deed, Is written first, to last through latest years, This gift of God, though gained with immemo rial tears. Teaching the lesson of that morning Voice To all her children, peace encompassed her, Till dawned a day in springtime, when the choice : " Death or Dishonor ! " made her pulses stir In scorn of life dishonored. " For the truth Go forth and die ! " she said to her immortal youth. The drum beat, and they answered. As they stood In the forefront of war, a sacred band, And poured the red libation of their blood At Freedom s altar for their native land, The stricken Mother wrote in words of flame: " For Truth s most holy cause," o er each re splendent name. For Truth and Freedom ! Not the nameless dead, Who through the centuries by the Grecian sea Sleep in the narrow pass they kept, shall shed 37 427790 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM A nobler lustre upon Liberty, Than these heroic hearts to whom she taught That Spartan fortitude is born of Spartan thought. Fronting defeat, she heard the drumbeat cease, She heard the cannonading die away. Counting her graves beneath the star of peace, With her dumb memories of that ended day Sacred to Freedom, glorified by death, She turned her holiest page in more exalted faith. " In storm or sunshine this one thing is sure, And shall be, through His everlasting years : The gift of God is destined to endure," So wrote she, "though ye take it e en with tears, Heartbreak and agony and bloody sweat. They who have loved it once have never lost it yet." It is her lesson still. Her slain sons sleeping A last long sleep, their battles all forgot, Whom neither love nor prayers, nor any weeping Might bring back to the land where they are not, Speak from the grave the message of their gain, That they are likewise free who slumber with the slain. 38 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM It is the lesson still that to the living, Who gather neath her mantle s ample fold, She gives as one most worthy of her giving, Better than fame, and finer far than gold: The gift of God, that hath been and shall be, To know the eternal Truth, and knowing, to be free. Freedom of thought, word, deed, the wider scope, The nobler sense, the keener, deeper sight, The truer aim, the holier, higher hope, The more abundant strength, the loftier light, All these are written fair for him to read Upon her open page, who learns her larger creed. " The gift of God is Freedom." To the end God grant it be the lesson she shall teach, Until its echoes, circling earth, shall blend In one deep chorus of thought, deed and speech, When all the peoples upon land or sea Shall know the Truth at last, and it shall make them free. MOSBY S MEN" Honeur fleurit sur la fosse." OLD FEENCH SAW. Head at the Seventh Annual Reunion of the survivors of the Forty-third Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, Mosby s Men, at Fairfax Court House, Virginia, September 11, 1900. MOSBY S MEN They tell the tale, with magic word The spirit s depths to stir, Of him who fought with Sidney s sword, Or rode with Percy s spur; For Honor bourgeons from the mould And blossoms from the dust, Though Percy s shining spur be cold, And Sidney s sword be rust. In a yet unforgotten day, When hearts and hopes were high, A little band rode down this way Whose fame will never die. Their cause was right, their blades were bright, And Honor shone again, A cloud by day, a fire by night, To beckon Mosby s Men. The wilderness their secret kept, They bivouacked neath the blue ; The tents they spread the sleep they slept The foeman never knew. No bugle blast nor tuck of drum Proclaimed their headlong fight ; The startled picket saw them come, And perished with the sight. 43 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM They came as lightnings come; they went As swift the west-winds blow; And blood ran red and life was spent Where er they met the foe. They buckled to the deadly fray Where they were one to ten. He spurred and drew to die or slay, Who rode with Mosby s Men. They carried on their sabres there The fortunes of the Truth; The breath they breathed was Freedom s air, In their immortal youth. It boots not if the unequal fight Was lost, though fierce and long: Tis written that eternal right Can never be made wrong. Down the dim years, long gone, once more Appears that phantom band; I hear the clanging charge of yore, I see a war-rent land. The vision of the desperate strife Eeturns through mists again. Those were the bravest days of life, The days of Mosby s Men. FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM The bravest days of all that shine Through immemorial years; Days of life s sacrificial wine, Of Love s divinest tears; When Valor guarded all the land, When hearts and hopes were high, And Love and Death went hand in hand With Faith, that could not die. But Harry Percy s spur is cold, And Sidney s sword is rust; And many a lad, who rode of old With that gay band, is dust. While those, bereft, who linger yet, Are wearier now than then: What matter? They cannot forget That they were Mosby s Men; That they were Mosby s Men, and rode, As soldiers love to ride, Where the red stream of battle flowed With its most swelling tide. No other stream may run so red, No higher tide may flow, Till God shall wake the dreamless dead, When the last trumpets blow. 45 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM The circling seasons come and go, Springs dawn, and autumns set; And winter with its drifted snow Repays the summer s debt; And song of bird and tint of bloom Are gay and bright, as when Those gallant lads rode to their doom, Long since, with Mosby s Men. But winter wears a sadder guise, And ghastlier for its snow, To him who looks with time-worn eyes On scenes of long ago; And neither autumn s glow, nor spring, Nor summer s emerald sod To hearts grown old again may bring The dead who sleep with God. It is His will. The sword may rust That battles for the right; The banner may be trailed in dust That leads the holiest fight; And Wrong may wear the victor s name, Where one shall strive with ten; But fate can never take from fame The deeds of Mosby s Men. VITAI LAMPADA A SONG FOR A CENTENARY TEAE Et quasi cursores vitdi lampada tradunt LUCRETIUS, " De Natura Rerum," ii. 7 Read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Vir ginia, February 19, 1901. VITAI LAMPADA A SONG FOR A CENTENARY YEAR Unto the year of liberty , He kept the gift his master gave, Who wore the shackles of the slave; But when death s hand had set him free, He lost it in the grave. 1 N"o child of his might hope to reap The harvest where his hand had sown; No vassal, where the high sun shone On earth, his father s field might keep Unhindered as his own. Old forces of the fettered earth Sultan and emperor and king, Scorned the poor, patient, plodding thing That crawled and crept to death from birth, For whom death had no sting. Through circling centuries the years Were born and withered into dust; And power still wrenched from hopes august The fruits of immemorial tears In rapine and in lust. lEzekiel, 46:17. 49 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM And then there came the voice of One Crying amid the wilderness, Like John s, above that dumb distress : " The day dawns. An all-golden sun Rises, the world to bless ! " For her it makes the pathway clear Who bends no knee and knows no rod, Who, springing from War s bloody sod, Yet bears what men shall hold most dear : The perfect peace of God. " Her name is Freedom ; and her home, Upbuilded here by patriot hands, The opprest shall hail from alien lands, Where tyrants bind beyond the foam The soul with iron bands." And ancient and immortal hope Returned the hope that men had had, And lost what time that clear voice bade The long-locked gates of morning ope, The enlightened world be glad. And in that dawn of liberty They saw how good the gift God gave, The brave gift given to the brave, The free gift given for the free, His gift, that true men crave. 50 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM They took the gift in scorn of those Who bowed the head and crooked the knee, Who, blind and sordid, would not see; And held, against embattled foes, The guerdon of the free. They toiled and wrought in faith and hope, And reared and builded, large and strong, A Temple, where the opprest might throng, A house, from corner-stone to cope Buttressed against the wrong. And dwelling neath serener skies They lived with Truth and Peace and Right; While fled from that etherial light The fading wrongs and groping lies That battened on the night. Love, fraught with knowledge, handed down The hallowed boon from sire to son. Who saw their handiwork well done, And slept, foresaw the centuries crown The work their hands begun. The freedom of the unshackled man Inspired the order of the state; Peace, smiling, sat within the gate; And where Love s perfect purpose ran, Hope held no fear of Fate. 51 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM And then dark winds arose, and drave Dun clouds across a sullen sky. The Temple s veil was rent. A cry Above the tumult rang: "We save The gift of God, or die ! " And hearkening, as their sires of old Who heard that earlier trumpet call, They answered from the outer wall: " We pledge our richer things than gold, Our lives, our loves, our all ! " Their heads are grizzled now, who drew The mother s milk that day, when War Eose on the horizon like a star To kindle hope; when Freedom grew So near that was so far. And clouds have lowered and fled; and suns Have shone; strange faces intervene; The blood-stained grass is ever green; And only in our dreams the guns Peal, and the flag is seen. In all the wars of all the world That men have known on land or sea, Where Hope hath welcomed Liberty, No fairer flag was e er unfurled Than this, to lead the free. 52 No belted knight, who in his grave Hath long since crumbled into dust, E er drew a blade in cause more just; Nor hero fought a fight more brave, A battle more august. Far off the bayonets mix and gleam, The tides of conflict ebb and flow; The shotted guns of long ago Boom faint and far; as in a dream The battle-bugles blow. Though but in dreams they gather yet, If but in dreams their faces shine, God keep for us those dreams divine, That we through life may not forget To love the thin gray line. " Here rest who for their country died, And with it: they are fallen on sleep," The Roman wrote. But we? We keep The ancient altars lit beside The graves of those we weep. There flames the fire that shall not wane, Caught from the torch that ever burns; And thence celestial Hope returns, That, dying, springs to life again From our funereal urns. 5 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM And this the litany we pray: That God who made may keep us free ; That storms may vex no more the sea, Where, brooding neath a cloudless day, Still sits Alcyone. 54. THE STONEWALL BRIGADE tf We shall find our lost youth when the bugle is blown." THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGQINSON. Read at the Beunion of the survivors of the Stonewall Brigade, at Staunton, Virginia, Octo ber 16, 1901. THE STONEWALL BRIGADE They come again, who in immortal story, Past failure, death and tears, Bore their unfading banner to its glory Through the laborious years. The frost is in their veins; the feet are laggard, That sped to meet the foe; Yet shines on every face, however haggard, The light of long ago. For each the peaceful years have vanished, seeing His comrades marching there. Once more they live and move and have their being In a diviner air. And shaking off the pulseless, feeble fashion Of this degenerate day, They thrill again with the heroic passion Of Stonewall Jackson s Way. What boots it, though the fight was lost? They fought it As soldiers should: That youth 57 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM Passed with it, and was lost too? Lo! these thought it Well spent, since for the Truth. They march with ghosts of comrades, dead and gory, Down the autumnal years Still bearing that rent banner, starred with glory, Past failure, death and tears. Lost Cause ! Lost Youth ! Nay, out of War s red sowing Hath sprung the harvest grain: Their cause is Fame s; and the old bugles, blowing, Bring back their youth again. 58 FOR A SOLDIEB " I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith" Harry C. Tinsley, Kichmond Howitzers, C. S. A., 1861-1865. Died Aug. 21, 1902. FOE A SOLDIER Not mid the din of battle long ago, But in the lingering clutch of later pain Death found him, whom we shall not see again Lifting a fearless front to every foe. Yet shall suns somewhere shine for him, and blow The lilies and the roses without stain, Who, through the lengthened years, in heart and brain Knew most of storm and winter with its snow. For it is written in the starry sky, In the vast spaces and the silences, That God s eternal universe is his Who fears not, though he live or if he die. A soldier to the dauntless end was he, As riding with his red artillery. 61 NEW MAEKET A THRENODY " Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time Could domicile decay } or house Decrepitude! They passed from earth ere manhood s prime, Ere years had power to dim their brows, Or chill their blood." JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN, "The Princess of Tir-, Owen and Tir-Connell." Read June 23, 1903, at the dedication of Sir Moses Ezekiel s Monument to the memory of the Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute who fell in the battle of New Market, Va., May 15, 1864. NEW MAEKET How shall the eternal fame of them be told, Who, dying in the heyday of life s morn, Thrust from their lips the chalice of bright gold Filled to the brim with joy, and went forlorn Into the abysmal darkness of that bourn, Whence they who thither go may nevermore return ? The circling seasons pass in old progression Of beauty and of immortality; The ancient stars march on in far procession, And immemorial winds sweep o er the sea; The mountains drop their wine; the flowers bloom ; While these, who should have lived, sleep in an early tomb. No blight had touched the garlands that they wore, Dewy and fresh with innocence and ruth; No dead illusions or spent glamours bore With heaviness upon them. Their gay youth Caught but the bubbles on the beaker s brim, oSTor e er beheld life s lees with eyes grown old and dim, 65 Were they in love with death s forgetfulness, Thus to lie down with the enduring dead? Had wood and stream lost all their loveliness, Or morning s sunshine faded overhead, That they sought surcease of life s sorrows there, Leaving wan Love to weep o er boyhood s sunny hair? All the old questionings rise to our lips In the sad contemplation of Youth slain: Life s hidden meaning, and Death s dark eclipse, The passion and the pathos and the pain; The unanswering answer that the wisest reads In the grim mystery that hangs behind the creeds. And yet and yet we old, whose heads are gray, Whose hearts are heavy, and whose steps are slow With journeying on this rough and thorny way, We, who live after them, what may we know Of their ecstatic rapture thus to have died, The marvellous, sleepless souls that perished in their pride? If the worn hearts and weary fall on sleep With a deep longing for its sweet repose, 66 Shall not they, likewise, whom the high Gods keep, Die, while yet bloom the lily and the rose? To each man living comes a day to die : What better day, than when Truth calls to Liberty ? Writ in the rocks, the world s primeval page Is old past human skill to interpret it, Save where it speaks to grief of man s gray age, And with the end of all things is o erwrit: All things save one, that hath unfading youth And strength and power and beauty, clear- eyed Truth. On mountain top in valley by the sea, Wherever sleep the patriots who have died In her high honor, at Thermopylae, At Bannockburn, or where great rivers glide To the wide ocean bordering our own shore, Truth sees the holy face of Freedom evermore ! The blood-stained face of Freedom, that hath wrought For man a magic and a mystery: Whose bright blade, e en when broken, yet hath bought A grave with the eternal for the free. 67 FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM Freedom and Truth, these went beside them there, Marching to deathless death, forever young and fair. " Send the Cadets in, and may God forgive ! " Who spake the words had welcomed rather death. But Truth dies not, and Liberty shall live, E en though Youth wither in the cannon s breath. And at the order, debonair and gay, They moved into the front of an immortal day. " Battalion forward ! " rang the sharp command ; " Guide centre ! " and the banner was unfurled. Then, as if on parade, the little band Dressed to the flag. A sad and sombre world Thrills with the memory of how they went Into that raging storm of fire and carnage blent. A worn and weary world in sorrow weeps For high hopes vanished at life s sunny morn; Yet Truth, with eyes that never falter, keeps Her gaze on Freedom s face, that smiles in scorn Of death for them who wear the laurelled crown, The early dead, who died with an achieved renown. 68 Creeds fade; faiths perish; empires rise and fall; And as the shining sun goes on his way, Oblivion covers with a dusty pall The life of man, predestined to decay. Yet is there one thing that shall never die: The memory of the Dead for Truth and Liberty. 69 LOST CAUSES (L Exvoi.) They never fail, who die in a great cause." BYRON: "Marino Faliero" Act II, Sc. 2. LOST CAUSES (L ENvoi) Cause of the Freed Souls, tempest-tossed, Who passed in battle, and whose names Are Glory s own thy splendor flames Beyond the stars! No cause is Lost Whose dead are Love s and Fame s. 73 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-25m-9, 47(A5618)444 A 000 923 262 PS 3513 G651f