A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves | Page 3

dauntless spirit, or his lofty enthusiasm awoke to fire their grey depths. His was a face that women trusted and that little children looked up into with smiles. Those whom he called friend learned the meaning of that name, and he drew and linked men to him from all ranks and conditions of life.
Beloved by many, those who guard his memory coin the very fervor of their hearts into the speech with which they link his name. "A very Chevalier Bayard" he was called.
Of him was quoted that noble epitaph on the great Lord Fairfax:
'Both sexes' virtues in him combined,?He had the fierceness of the manliest mind,?And all the meekness too of woman kind.'
'He never knew what envy was, nor hate,?His soul was filled with worth and honesty,?And with another thing quite out of date, called modesty.'
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. Often the editor brought his work to the table of his library that he might avail himself of his wife's judgment, and labor with the faces around him that he loved, for their union was a very congenial one, and when two daughters came to bless it, as husband and father, he poured out the treasures of his heart, his mind and soul. To his children he was a wise teacher, a tender guide, an unfailing friend, the most delightful of companions. His sympathy for and his understanding of young people never aged, and he had a circle of dear and familiar friends of varying ages that gathered about him once a week. There, beside his own hearth, his ready wit, his kindly humor sparkled most brightly, and there flowed forth most evenly that speech accounted by many well worth the hearing. For his was also the art of listening; he not only led the expression of thought, but inspired it in others. 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.
I have said that in his early years Old Hampton claimed him. He became the son of the city of his adoption and sleeps among her dead.
Above his ashes rises a shaft, fashioned from the stones of the State he loved so well which proclaims that it is "The tribute of his friends offered to the memory of the Poet, Patriot, Scholar, and Journalist and the Knightly Virginia Gentleman."
JANEY HOPE MARR,
LEXINGTON, VA.
INDEX.
The Charge at Balaklava?A Short Sermon?A Little Picture?A Reply to a Young Lady?A Story of the Caracas Valley?Three Summer Studies?The Washington Memorial Ode?How it Fell Calm on Summer Night?A Friend of Mine?Indolence?The Jamestown Anniversary Ode?An Elegiac Ode?The Cadets at New Market?Our Heroic Dead?Mahone's Brigade?The Portsmouth Memorial Poem--The Future Historian?Arms and The Man?Prologue?The Dead Statesman?The Colonies?The New England Group?The Southern Colonies?The Old Dominion?The Oaks and the Tempest?The Embattled Colonies?Welcome to France?The Allies at Yorktown?The Ravages of War?The Lines Around Yorktown?The French in the Trenches?Nelson and the Gunners?The Beleaguered Town?Storming the Redoubts?The Two Leaders?The Beginning of the End?The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis?Our Ancient Allies?The Continentals?The Marquis?The Ancient Enemies?The Splendid Three?The War Horse Draws the Plough?Heroes and Statesmen?Pater Patri??The Flag of the Republic?The South in the Union?To Alexander Galt, the Sculptor?To the Poet-Priest Ryan?Three Names?Sir Walter Raleigh?Captain John Smith?Pocahontas?Sunset on Hampton Roads?A King's Gratitude?"The Twinses"?Dreamers?Under One Blanket?The Lee Memorial Ode
[ILLUSTRATION]
A WREATH OF VIRGINIA BAY LEAVES.
THE CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA.
Nolan halted where the squadrons,?Stood impatient of delay,?Out he drew his brief dispatches,?Which their leader quickly snatches,?At a glance their meaning catches;?They are ordered to the fray!
All that morning they had waited--?As their frowning faces showed,?Horses stamping, riders fretting,?And their teeth together setting;?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.
Stern its meaning; was not Gallia?Looking down on Albion's sons??In each mind this thought implanted,?Undismayed and all undaunted,?By the battle-fiends enchanted,?They ride down upon the guns.
Onward! On! the chargers trample;?Quicker falls each iron heel!?And the headlong pace grows faster;?Noble steed and noble master,?Rushing on to red disaster,?Where