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!