THE TWO KENTUCKIANS.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN—Fourteenth President of the United States; born in Hardin County, Ky., February 12, 1809; assassinated in Ford’s Theater, April 16, 1865.
JEFFERSON DAVIS—First and last President of the Southern Confederacy; born in Christian County, Ky., June 3, 1808; died in New Orleans, December 6, 1889.
The sky of the Southland with grief is o’ercast;
Bitter tears down the cheeks of the brave trickle fast;
The moss-streamered oaks of Beauvoir bow their head—
Their Master is fallen, their Chieftain is dead.
Wake, soldier, who liest outstretched on thy bier:
Does the warwhoop of Black Hawk not startle thy ear?
Seest thou not the long Mexican lancers’ array
At dark Buena Vista rush fierce to the fray?
Hapless Mexican Cavalry! great was your scath
As you fearlessly charged down that Angel of Death.
The manes of the chargers like meteors streamed,
Like rainbows far-flashing the gay pennons gleamed;
Like lightning from Heaven Davis brandished his sword
And fierce was the volley his riflemen poured;
They reel in their saddles, they topple and fall,
The flag of the cavalcade turns to a pall,
Its ghostly Commander is the skeleton Death—
The fair rose of Mexico shrinks in his breath.
They halt—they retreat—in wild tumult they run,
The eagle soars victor—Buena Vista is won.
Hearken, O spangled Cavaliers, to that dread warning cry
Which like the trump of Judgment is sounding from the sky—
“Remember cruel Alamo’s foul massacre and die!”
Lo her avengers, Taylor, Davis, Hardin, McKee, and Clay!
Abundant sacrifice went up in smoke of battle gray,
So were thy Manes appeased, brave Crockett, on that day,
Thy phantom sped from Alamo to cheer that bloody fray.
Our troops on that field by their valor and scars
Added stars to our flag’s constellation of stars,
And Buena Vista’s immaculate name
Like a beacon-fire burns in the temple of fame.
Weep, daughters of Mexico, for lover and spouse,
Hang crepe on the door of each desolate house,
Long, long shall the maidens of Anahuac mourn
For their fallen defenders who shall never return.
Once, in Senate encounter, in battle’s fierce brunt,
Thy plume, like Navarre’s, streamed full high in the front.
Thou wast once, like Scotch Bruce, of inflexible will,
Unyielding, though conquered, and resolute still.
In field or in council, with sword, tongue or pen,
The molder of ideas, the leader of men.
Clay—Webster—Oh, Chief, are thy pulses unstirred
When the mighty debate in the Senate is heard?
Hark, Sumter’s loud tocsin! Saw the world e’er the like?
For Freedom and Union and Southland they strike.
Grant, Meade, Lee and Thomas like Titans engage,
And the Lost Cause departs like a ghost from the stage.
’Tis past, like a dream of the dawning in air,
For thee, the world’s pageant of Vanity Fair.
All faded—those phantoms and dreams of the past,
And crepe ties the flag as it falls to the mast.
The dirge wails its sorrow to dead ears in vain;
The pallbearers’ flag is the flag of the train,
The traveler’s baggage lies all in one chest,
Whose check is a coffin plate lettered “At Rest.”
And Metairie’s vault opes its dark, narrow berth
For the cold, pallid earth which returns to the earth.
As I rode o’er the mountain I saw not how high
Its pine-covered summit ascended the sky.
’Twas a mere undulation that rose from the plain—
But, as journeying on, I beheld it again,
The veil of Omnipotence spread like a shroud
On its brow, that looked down on the loftiest cloud.
So our lives were too near to those lives which expired
When the battle of freedom our continent fired.
To measure their valor and virtue aright—
Our vision is dim when too close to the light.