A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves | Page 9

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 social
temple's symmetry and grace.

But here I pause, for happier omens look,
And playing Flamen turn to
Nature's book:
Where late rich Autumn sat on golden throne,
A
stern usurper makes the crown his own;
The courtier woodlands,
robbed of all their state,
Stripped of their pomp, look grim and
desolate;
Reluctant conscripts, clad in icy mail,
Their captive
pleadings rise on every gale.
Now mighty oaks stand like bereaved
Lears;
Pennons are furled on all the sedgy spears
Where the sad
river glides between its banks,
Like beaten general twixt his pompless
ranks;
And the earth's bosom, clad in armor now,
Bids stern
defiance to the iron plough,
While o'er the fields so desolate and
damp
Invading Winter spreads his hostile camp.[4]
And as he shakes his helmet's snowy plume
The landscape saddens
into deeper gloom.
But yet ere many moons have flung to lea,
To
begging billows of the hungry sea,
Their generous gold--like oriental
queens--
A change will pass o'er all these wintry scenes;
There'll
come the coronation of glad Spring,
Grander than any made for bride
of king.
[Footnote 4: The statue was unveiled in a snow-storm.]

Earth's hodden grey will change to livelier hues
Enriched with pearl
drops of the limpid dews;
Plenty will stand with her large tranquil
eyes
To see her treasures o'er the landscape rise.
Thus may the
lover of his country hope
To see again the Nation's spring-tide ope,

And freedom's harvest turn to ripened gold,
So that our world may
give unto the old
Of its great opulence, as Joseph gave
Bread to his
brothers when they came to crave.
But from his name I've paused too long you think?
Yet he who stands
beside Niagra's brink
Breaketh not forth at once of its grand strife;

'Tis thus I stand subdued by his great life--

And with his name a host of others rise,
Climbing like planets,
Fame's eternal skies:
Great names, my Brothers! with such deeds
allied
That all Virginians glow with filial pride--
That here the
multitude shall daily pace
Around this statue's hero-circled base,

Thinking on those who, though long sunk in sleep,
Still round our
camp the guard of sentries keep--
Who when a foe encroaches on our
line,
Prompt the stern challenge for the countersign--
Who with
proud memories feed our bright watch-fire
Which ne'er has faded,
never will expire;
Grand benedictions, they in bronze will stand
To
guard and consecrate our native land!
Great names are theirs! But his,
like battle song,
In quicker current sends our blood along;
For at its
music hearts throb quick and large,
Like those of horsemen
thundering in the charge.
God's own Knight-Errant! There his figure
stands!
Our souls are full--our bonnets in our hands!
When the fierce torrent--lava-like--of bronze
To mould this statue
burst it furnace bonds,
When it out-thundered in its liquid flow,

With splendid flame and scintillating glow,
'Twas in its wild
tumultuous throb and storm
Type of the age which moulded into form

The god-like character of him sublime,
Whose name is reared a
statue for all time
In the great minster of the whole world's heart.

I've called his name a statue. Stern and vast
It rests enthroned upon
the mighty past:
Fit plinth for him whose image in the mind
Looms
up as that of one by God designed!
Fit plinth in sooth! the mighty
past for him
Whose simple name is Glory's synonyme!
E'en Fancy's
self, in her enchanted sleep,
Can dream no future which may cease to
keep
His name in guard, like sentinel and cry
From Time's great
bastions: "It shall never die."

His simple name a statue? Yes, and grand
'Tis reared in this and
every other land.
Around its base a group more noble stands
Than
e'er was carved by human sculptor's hands,
E'en though each form,
like that of old should flush
With vivid beauty's animating blush--

Though dusky bronze, or pallid stone should thrill
With sudden life at
some Pygmalion's will--
For these great figures, with his own
enshrined,
Are seen, my Countrymen, by men, though blind.
There Valor fronts us with her storied shield,
Brave in devices won
on many a field;
A splendid wreath snatched from the carnage grim

Is twined around that buckler's burnished rim,
And as we gaze, the
brazen trumpets blare
With shrill vibration shakes the frightened air--

The roll of musketry--the clash of steel--
The clang of hoofs as
charging squadrons wheel--
The hoarse command--the imprecative