A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves | Page 8

it strikes bounds up again in spray?As if 'twere dancing to the fitful song?Made by the trees, which twist themselves and sway?In contest with the wind which rises fast,?Until the breeze becomes a furious blast.
And now, the sudden, fitful storm has fled,?The clouds lie pil'd up in the splendid west,?In massive shadow tipp'd with purplish red,?Crimson or gold. The scene is one of rest;?And on the bosom of yon still lagoon?I see the crescent of the pallid moon.
THE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL ODE.
Certain events, like architects, build up?Viewless cathedrals, in whose aisles the cup?Of some impressive sacrament is kist--?Where thankful nations taste the Eucharist.?Pressed to their lips by some heroic Past?Enthroned like Pontiff in the temple vast--?Where incense rises t'wards the dome sublime?From golden censers in the hands of Time--?Where through the smoke some sculptured saint appears?Crowned with the glories of historic years;?Before whose shrine whole races tell their beads--?From whose pale front each sordid thought recedes,?Gliding away like white and stealthy ghost,?As Memory rears it's consecrated Host,?As blood and body of a sacred name?Make the last supper of some deathless fame.
This the event! Here springs the temple grand,?Whose mighty arches take in all the land!?Its twilight aisles stretch far away and reach?'Mid lights and shadows which defy my speech:?And near its portal which Morn opened wide--?Grey Janitor!--to let in all this tide?Of prayerful men, most solemnly there stands?One recollection, which, for pious hands?Is ready like the Minster's sculptured vase,?With holy water for each reverent face.?And mystic columns, which my fancy views,?Glow in a thousand soft, subduing hues?Flung through the stained windows of the Past in gloom,?Of royal purple o'er our warrior's tomb.

Oh, proud old Commonwealth! thy sacred name?Makes frequent music on the lips of Fame!?And as the nation, in its onward march,?Thunders beneath the Union's mighty arch,?Thine the bold front which every patriot sees?The stateliest figure on its massive frieze.?Oh, proud old State! well may thy form be grand,?'Twas thine to give a Savior to the land.?For, in the past, when upward rose the cry,?"Save or we perish!" thine 'twas to supply?The master-spirit of the storm whose will?Said to the billows in their wrath: "Be still!"?And though a great calm followed, yet the age?In which he saw that mad tornado rage?Made in its cares and wild tempestuous strife?One solemn Passion of his noble life.
This day, then, Countrymen of all the year,?We well may claim to be without a peer:?Amid the rest--impalpable and vast--?It stands a Cheops looming through the past,?Close to the rushing, patriotic Nile?Which here o'erflows our hearts to make them smile?With a rich harvest of devoted zeal,?Men of Virginia, for the Common-weal!
And to our Bethlehem ye who come to-day--?Ye who compose this multitude's array--?Ye who are here from mighty Northern marts?With frankincense and myrrh within your hearts--?Ye who are here from the gigantic West,?The offspring nurtured at Virginia's breast,?Which in development by magic seems?Straight to embody all that Progress dreams--?Ye who are here from summer-wedded lands--?From Carolina's woods to Tampa's sands,?From Florida to Texas broad and free?Where spreads the prairie, like a dark, green sea--?Ye whose bold fathers from Virginia went?In wilds to pitch brave enterprise's tent,?Spreading our faith and social system wide,?By which we stand peculiarly allied!--?Ye Southern men, whose work is but begun,?Whose course is on t'ward regions of the sun,?Whose brave battalions moved to tropic sods?Solemn and certain as though marching gods?Were ordered in their circumstance and state?Beneath the banner of resistless Fate!
Ye have been welcomed, Countrymen, by him [3]?Beside whose speech my rhetoric grows dim--?Whose thoughts are flint and steel--whose words are flame, For they all stir us like some hero's name:?But once again the Commonwealth extends?Her open hand in welcome to her friends;?Come ye from North, or South, or West, or East,?No bull's head enters at Virginia's feast.?And ye who've journeyed hither from afar,?Know that fair Freedom's liquid morning star?Still sheds its glories in a thousand beams,?Gilding our forests, fountains, mountains, streams,?With light as luminous as on that morn?When the Messiah of the land was born.?Then as we here partake the mystic rites?To which his memory like a priest invites;?Kneeling beside the altars of this day,?Let every heart subdued one moment pray,
[Footnote 3: Governor Wise.]

That He who lit our morning star's pure light?Will never blot it from the nation's sight;?That He will banish those portentous clouds?Which from so many its effulgence shrouds--?Which none will deem me Hamlet-mad when I?Say hang like banners on the darkened sky,?Suggesting perils in their warlike shape,?Which Heavenly Father grant that we escape!

Why touch upon these topics, do you ask??Why blend these themes with my allotted task??My answer's brief, 'tis, Citizens, because?I see fierce warfare made upon the Laws.?A people's poets are that people's seers,?The prophet's faculty, in part, is theirs,?And thus 'tis fit that from this statue's base,?Beneath great Washington's majestic face,?That I should point the dangers which menace?Our