That rippl'd back to Norman sires, or found Its fountain-seat among the tilting knights Of the Arthurian times. Upon the walls Of Valor's battle-abbey, lifted high, 'Mid holy emblems, let the old flag droop, Till morning breezes wake the eternal day— Then, in the kindling East, shall melt the Bars And, in an unending sunrise, set the Stars.
THE ROLL-CALL OF THE STATES.
USE of the Mountain, bid the bugler sound The roll-call of the States. Virginia first,* Who bore upon a Spartan mother's breast
The matchless Washington; and then to prove
What seeds of laurel in her lap were left,
Gave to our cause a Jackson and a Lee!
Sweep the horizon round! Where can you match Those twins of immortality, who light The jewel'd arch of History's firmament, With gems whose luster Time can never dim? Virginia! In that rhythmic name is heard The Rappahannock's roll, and through it smiles The dreaming Shenandoah. Sown with the dust Of Dixie's deathless dead, our Mecca-shrines Are there, our Holy Land of memories. Virginia, grand old mother, whose proud soil, Harrow'd by War's grim plow-share, bloom'd Into an endless chain of battle-fields- Manassas, Seven Pines and Fredericksburg, The Wilderness, Winchester, Malvern Hill, The battles 'round old Richmond-Petersburg And Appomattox, where our flag went down- Ah, what a tangl'd maze of martyr-dust! Enough to glorify another Greece
And sow with triumph all the Roman hills. Whose radiant after-glow has made her woods
Red with autumnal splendors, till the sun
* Virginia did not secede until April 17, 1861, but is mentioned first because she
held the seat of government and furnished most of the battlefields.
Can spread no feast upon her western sky To match the spectacle, when, at his best, Above her far-fam'd Valley pois'd, he flames To his majestic setting. Her immortal dead In silent Hollywood, have made that realm Of rest an emerald Westminster, aye, A glorious Valhalla! Her proud trust, The old Confederate capital, is there, Our citadel of memories. Who but loves That fair metropolis-gift of the gods- Historic Richmond, on the James! There sleep Two Presidents*, besides the other four
Who elsewhere slumber. But, in peace serene, A peer among them all, there calmly dreams Our disinherited but glorious chief, Jefferson Davis! Peace to his repose, Beside the waters which his couch o'erlooks! Stuart is there, Pickett, and A. P. Hill.
There, bivouack'd for the night, in serried ranks, A slumbering army waits to march at dawn.
On Spring Hill's starry heights, by cedars crown'd, Jubal A. Early sleeps his comrade there, Lynchburg's Lame Liont-he whose silvery tongue Unveil'd the lofty shaft to Washington, And kindl'd echoes which can never die,
While music haunts the valley of the James,
Or thunder's drum-beats wake the Peaks of Otter. Virginia! Dear to us her sacred soil,
And glory haunted all her whispering groves. There droop'd our Conquer'd Banner on its staff. There, in the dust, our Southern Cross went down To rise no more, and there a soldier's hand Lee gave to Grant, in honor's golden truce.
Major John W. Daniel, afterwards a U. S. Senator.
Our "Old Dominion," which, at Jamestown, rock'd The cradle of the western world, there lit The Anglo-Saxon's earliest fires, and there Reviv'd that ancient right of Runnymede, Which guaranteed to every Englishman Fair trial, by a jury of his peers!
Poets are hers:-the laurel'd Hope, Thompson Whose "Battle-Rainbow" belts th' historic hills And gentle Margaret Preston who awoke The song-flowers of the Valley, but to wreathe With immortelles, the harp of Lexington. Nor can the Old Dominion e'er forget John Esten Cooke, whose pen of martial fire Wrote "Surry" and "Mohun." Tranquil be his rest, Till break of day, in Millwood's cedar'd glooms, Where the great Edmund Randolph calmly sleeps. Dead-did I say? The great Virginians live! In endless troops, they come from every fane- Behold!-the glorious Ashbys ride again! Dabney H. Maury from the tomb comes forth! R. M. T. Hunter, Sedden, both Garnetts, The stern McDowell, Mason and Mahone, Pegram and Long, Lomax and Pendleton, Rosser and Armistead, and all the rest,
Smile round the boards, at Memory's phantom feast! Montpelier-Monticello-Arlington-
Mount Vernon-Gunston Hall. Where can you match Virginia's shrines her holy sepulchres?
A Washington's last resting-place! Alone This were enough of honor. Ah, but there, In sacred Lexington, a Stonewall sleeps Hard by th' incarnate flower of all the Lees. Entomb'd within her hallow'd soil, she holds Great Jefferson, who penn'd th' immortal scroll Of Freedom; Patrick Henry, whose bold tongue,
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