A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves | Page 8

the sultry blaze.
III.
That solitary cloud grows dark and wide,
While distant thunder
rumbles in the air,
A fitful ripple breaks the river's tide--
The lazy
cattle are no longer there,
But homeward come in long procession
slow,
With many a bleat and many a plaintive low.
Darker and wider-spreading o'er the west
Advancing clouds, each in
fantastic form,
And mirror'd turrets on the river's breast
Tell in
advance the coming of a storm--
Closer and brighter glares the
lightning's flash
And louder, nearer, sounds the thunder's crash.
The air of evening is intensely hot,
The breeze feels heated as it fans
my brows--
Now sullen rain-drops patter down like shot--
Strike in
the grass, or rattle 'mid the boughs.
A sultry lull: and then a gust
again,
And now I see the thick-advancing rain.

It fairly hisses as it comes along,
And where 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