'Yesterday,' writes a thoughtful observer, from near Stafford Court House, in December, 1862, 'for the first time since leaving Harper's Ferry, I met with an evidence of the old-time aristocracy, of which the present race of Virginians boast so much and possess so little. About four miles from here, standing remote and alone in the centre of a dense wood, I found an antiquated house of worship, reminding one of the old heathen temples hidden in the recesses of some deep forest, whither the followers after unknown gods were wont to repair for worship or to consult the oracles. On every side are seen venerable trees overtowering its not unpretentious steeple. The structure is built of brick (probably brought from England), in the form of a cross, semi-gothic, with entrances on three sides, and was erected in the year 1794. On entering, the first object which attracted my attention was the variously carved pulpit, about twenty-five feet from the floor, with a winding staircase leading to it. Beneath were the seats for the attendants, who, in accordance with the customs of the old English Episcopacy, waited upon the dominie. The floor is of stone, a large cross of granite lying in the centre, where the broad aisles intersect. To to the left of this is a square enclosure for the vestrymen, whose names are written on the north side of the building. The reader, if acquainted with Virginia pedigrees, will recognize in them some of the oldest and most honorable names of the State—Thomas Fitzhugh, John Lee, Peter Hedgman, Moot Doniphan, John Mercer, Henry Tyler, William Mountjoy, John Fitzhugh, John Peyton. On the north hall are four large tablets containing Scriptural quotations. Directly beneath is a broad flagstone, on which is engraved with letters of gold, 'In memory of the House of Moncure.' This smacks of royalty. Parallel to it lies a tombstone with the following inscription:
Sacred to the memory of William Robison, the fourth son of H. and E. Moncure, of Windsor Forest, born the 27th of January, 1806, and died 13th of April, 1828, of a pulmonary disease, brought on by exposure to the cold climate of Philadelphia, where he had gone to prepare himself for the practice of medicine. Possessed of a mind strong and vigorous, and of a firmness of spirit a stranger to fear, he died manifesting that nobleness of soul which characterized him while living, the brightest promise of his parents, and the fondest hopes of their afflicted family.
'Led, doubtless, by the expectation of discovering buried valuables, some one has removed the stone from its original position, and excavated the earth beneath. Close by the entrance on the north side are three enclosed graves, where sleep those of another generation. The brown, moss-covered tombstones appear in strong contrast to a plain pine board at the head of a fresh-made grave alongside, and bearing the following inscription: 'Henry Basler, Company H, One Hundred and Eighteenth Pennsylvania Volunteers.'
Loyal during the civil war of England, virtually an independent State under Cromwell, it is the remarkable destiny of Virginia, so called in honor of Queen Elizabeth's unmarried state, to have given birth to the spotless chief who conducted to a triumphant issue the American Revolution—to the orator who, more than any individual, by speech alone kindled the patriotic flame thereof—to the jurist whose clear and candid mind and sagacious integrity gave dignity and permanence to constitutional law—and to the statesman who advocated and established the democratic principle and sentiment which essentially modified and moulded the political character and career of the Republic, and he was the author of that memorable Declaration of Independence which became the charter of free nationality. From 1606, when three small vessels, with a hundred or more men, sailed for the shores of Virginia under the command of Christopher Newport, and Smith planned Jamestown, to the last pronunciamento of the rebel congress of Richmond, the documentary history of Virginia includes in charter, code, report, chronicle, plea, and protest, almost every possible element and form of political speculation, civic justice, and seditious arrogance: and therein the philosopher may find all that endears and hallows and all that disintegrates and degrades the State as a social experiment and a moral fact: so that of all the States of the Union her antecedents, both noble and infamous, indicate Virginia as the most appropriate arena for the last bitter conflict between the great antagonistic forces of civil order with those of social peace and progress. There where Washington, a young surveyor, became familiar with toil, exposure, and responsibility, he passed the crowning years of his spotless career; where he was born, he died and is buried; where Patrick Henry roamed and mused until the hour struck for him to rouse, with invincible eloquence, the instinct of free citizenship; where Marshall drilled his yeoman for battle, and disciplined his judicial mind by study; where Jefferson wrote his political philosophy and notes of a naturalist; where Burr was tried, Clay was born, Wirt pleaded, Nat Turner instigated the Southampton massacre, Lord Fairfax hunted, and John Brown was hung, Randolph bitterly jested, and Pocahontas won a holy fame—there treason reared its hydra head and profaned the consecrated soil with vulgar insults and savage cruelty; there was the last battle scene of the Revolution and the first of the Civil War; there is Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Yorktown, and there also are Manassas, Bull Run, and Fredericksburg; there is the old graveyard of Jamestown and the modern Golgotha of Fair Oaks; there is the noblest tribute art has reared to Washington, and the most loathsome prisons wherein despotism wreaked vengeance on patriotism; and on that soil countless martyrs have offered up their lives for the national existence, whose birth-pangs Virginia's peerless son shared, and over whose nascent being he kept such holy and intrepid vigil, bequeathing it as the most solemn of human trusts to those nearest to his local fame, by whom, with factious and fierce scorn, it has been infamously betrayed on its own hallowed ground; whose best renown shall yet be that it is the scene, not only of Freedom's sacrifice, but of her most pure and permanent triumph.
SHE DEFINES HER POSITION.
Lingering late in garden talk,
My friend and I, in the prime of June.
The long tree-shadows across the walk
Hinted the waning afternoon;
The bird-songs died in twitterings brief;
The clover was folding, leaf on leaf.
Fairest season of all the year,
And fairest of years in all my time;
Earth is so sweet, and heaven so near,
Sure life itself must be just at prime.
Soft flower-faces that crowd our way,
Have you no word for us to-day?
Each in its nature stands arrayed:
Heliotropes to drink the sun;
Violet-shadows to haunt the shade;
Poppies, by every wind undone;
Lilies, just over-proud for grace;
Pansies, that laugh in every face.
Great bloused Peonies, half adoze;
Mimulus, wild in change and freak;
Dainty flesh of the China Rose,
Tender and fine as a fairy's cheek;
(I watched him finger the folds apart
To get at the blush in its inmost heart.)
Lo, at our feet what small blue eyes!
And still, as we looked, their numbers came
Like shy stars out of the evening skies,
When the east is gray, and the west is flame.
—'Gather yourself, and give to me,
Those Forget-me-nots,' said he.
Word of command I take not ill;
When love commands, love likes to obey.
But, while my words my thoughts fulfil,
'Forget me not,' I will not say.
Vows for the false; an honest mind
Will not be bound, and will not bind.
In your need of me I put my trust,
And your lack of need shall be my ban;
'Tis time to remember, when you must;
Time to forget me, when you can.
Yet cannot the wildest thought of mine
Fancy a life distuned from thine.
—Small reserve is between us two;
'Tis heart to heart, and brain to brain:
Bare as an arrow, straight and true,
Struck his thought to my thought again.
'Not distuned; one song of praise,
First and third, our lives shall raise.'
Close we stood in the rosy glow,
Watching the cloudland tower and town;
Watching the double Castor grow
Out of the east as the sun rolled down.
'Yonder, how star drinks star!' said he;
'Yield thou so; live thou in me.'
Nay, we are close—we are not one,
More than those stars that seem to shine
In the self-same place, yet each a sun,
Each distinct in its sphere divine.
Like to Himself art thou, we know;
Like to Himself am I also.
What did He mean, when He sent us forth,
Soul and soul, to this lower life?
Each with a purpose, each a worth,
Each an arm for the human strife.
Armor of thine is not for me;
Neither is mine adjudged by thee.
Now in the lower life we stand,
Weapons donned, and the strife begun;
Higher nor lower; hand to hand;
Each helps each with the glad 'Well done!'
Each girds each to nobler ends;
None less lovers because such friends.
So in the peace of the closing day,
Resting, as striving side by side,
What does He mean? again we say;
For what new lot are our souls allied?
Comes to my ken, in Death's advance,
Life in its next significance.
See yon tortoise; he crossed the path
At noon, to hide where the grass is tall;
In a slow half sense of the sun-king's wrath,
Burrowing close to the garden wall.
—Think, could we pour into that dull brain
A man's whole life, joy, thought, and pain!
So, methinks, is the life we lead,
To the larger life that next shall be:
Narrow in thought, uncouth in deed;
Crawling, who yet shall walk so free;
Walking, who yet on wings shall soar;
Flying, who shall need wings no more.
Lo, in the larger life we stand;
We drop the weapons, we take the tools:
We serve with mind who served with hand:
We live by laws who lived by rules.
And our old earth-love, with its mortal bliss,
Was the fancy of babe for babe, to this.
—Visions begone! Above us rise
The worlds, on His work majestic sent.
Floating below, the small fireflies
Make up a tremulous firmament.
Stars in the grass, and roses dear,
Earth is full sweet, though heaven is near.