As poet, and as the youthful colleague of Henry A. Wise and John R. Thompson, he stood at the base of Crawford's statue of Washington, in the Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia, the 22d of February, 1858. That same year these recited poems, together with some miscellaneous ones were published.
Congress chose him as poet for the Yorktown Centennial, 1881, and his "brilliant and masterly poem was a fitting companion piece to the splendid oration delivered upon that occasion by the renowned orator, Robert C. Winthrop."
This metrical address "Arms and the Man," with various sonnets was published the next year. As the flower of his genius, its noble measures only revealed their full beauty when they fell from the lips of him who framed them, and it was under this spell that one of those who had thronged about him that 19th of October cried out: "Now I understand the power by which the old Greek poets swayed the men of their generation."
Again his State called upon him to weave among her annals the laurels of his verse at the laying of the cornerstone of the monument erected in Richmond to Robert E. Lee. The corner-stone was laid October, 1887, but the poet's voice had been stilled forever. He died September the 15th, as he had often wished to die, "in harness," and at home, and Death came swift and painless.
His poem, save for the after softening touches, had been finished the previous day, and was recited at the appointed time and place by Captain William Gordon McCabe.
"Memoriæ Sacrum," the Lee Memorial Ode, has been pronounced by many his masterpiece, and waked this noble echo in a brother poet's soul:
'Like those of whom the olden scriptures tell,
Who faltered not, but went on dangerous quest,
For one cool draught of water from the well
With which to cheer their exiled monarch's breast;'
'So thou to add one single laurel more
To our great chieftain's fame—heedless of pain
Didst gather up thy failing strength and pour
Out all thy soul in one last glorious strain.'
* * * * *
"And when the many pilgrims come to gaze
Upon the sculptured form of mighty Lee,
They'll not forget the bard who sang his praise
With dying breath, but deathless melody."