Go! with your bright emblazoned scroll
And tell the years to be,
The first of names that flash your roll
Is ours — great Robert Lee.
Lee wore the gray! since then
'Tis Right's and Honor's hue!
He honored it, that man of men,
And wrapped it round the true.
Dead! but his spirit breathes!
Dead! but his heart is ours!
Dead! but his sunny and sad land wreathes
His crown with tears for flowers.
A statue for his tomb!
Mould it of marble white!
For Wrong, a spectre of death and doom;
An angel of hope for Right.
But Lee has a thousand graves
In a thousand hearts, I ween;
And teardrops fall from our eyes in waves
That will keep his memory green.
Ah! Muse, you dare not claim
A nobler man than he,
Nor nobler man hath less of blame,
Nor blameless man hath purer name,
Nor purer name hath grander fame,
Nor fame — another Lee.
Fragments from an Epic Poem
A Mystery
His face was sad; some shadow must have hung
Above his soul; its folds, now falling dark,
Now almost bright; but dark or not so dark,
Like cloud upon a mount, 'twas always there —
A shadow; and his face was always sad.
His eyes were changeful; for the gloom of gray
Within them met and blended with the blue,
And when they gazed they seemed almost to dream
They looked beyond you into far-away,
And often drooped; his face was always sad.