Too well we feel the import of our fears—
The wide-flashed word, “the South is steeped in tears!”
Fitly she weeps for her chivalric son
Who turned to her, in flush of triumph won,
The filial voice to gain her glad applause—
The golden tongue to plead—to gild her cause.
That spirit note—the music of his speech,
Is silenced now in earthly hearing’s reach;
Snapped is the silvern thread—the resonant soul—
Though severed still its pæans reverberant roll—