THE LEE MEMORIAL ODE.
"Great Mother of great Commonwealths"
Men call our Mother State:
And she so well has earned this name
That she may challenge Fate
To snatch away the epithet
Long given her of "great."
First of all Old England's outposts
To stand fast upon these shores
Soon she brought a mighty harvest
To a People's threshing floors,
And more than golden grain was piled
Within her ample doors.
Behind her stormy sunrise shone,
Her shadow fell vast and long,
And her mighty Adm'ral, English Smith,
Heads a prodigous throng
Of as mighty men, from Raleigh down,
As ever arose in song.
Her names are the shining arrows
Which her ancient quiver bears,
And their splendid sheaf has thickened
Through the long march of the years,
While her great shield has been burnished
By her children's blood and tears.
Yes, it is true, my Countrymen,
We are rich in names and blood,
And red have been the blossoms
From the first Colonial bud,
While her names have blazed as meteors
By many a field and flood.
And as some flood tumultuous
In sounding billows rolled
Gives back the evening's glories
In a wealth of blazing gold:
So does the present from its waves
Reflect the lights of old.
Our history is a shining sea
Locked in by lofty land
And its great Pillars of Hercules,
Above the shining sand,
I here behold in majesty
Uprising on each hand.
These Pillars of our history,
In fame forever young,
Are known in every latitude
And named in every tongue,
And down through all the Ages
Their story shall be sung.
The Father of his Country
Stands above that shut-in sea
A glorious symbol to the world
Of all that's great and free;
And to-day Virginia matches him—
And matches him with Lee.