Thus when the sun of victory sheared
Its gory way o’er clouds of war,
This flower’s tow’ring crest appeared
A beacon star.
And in its gorgeous, glorious rays,
This flower basked, and only bowed
When coming conquest’s bloody haze
That sun did shroud.
Crushed flower, with thy broken stem,
I’ll keep thee near to typify
The fallen form; the hero’s fame
Can never die.
June 19th, 1867.
AN ELEGY
WRITTEN ON THE ROTUNDA STEPS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1868
The bell the knell of evening lecture tolls,
The thronging students pour from every door;
The tutor gathers up his notes and rolls,
And homeward wends his weary way once more.
The noisy crowd is gone, there is a pause,
And hushed is all the busy hum and whirl,
Save where from yonder room breaks loud applause
That welcomes some professor’s parting “curl.”
Save that from yonder plain, the lower lawn,
Some base-ball novice makes harsh rhyms to psalm,
Because a veteran, with his hands of horn,
Has “pitched” too “hot” a ball for his soft palm.
Beneath those balconies, along those rows,
Where sinks the wall in many a jail-like cell,
Each wrapped in silence now and in repose,
The minstrels of the “Calathump” do dwell.