SUSPIRIA ENSIS.

157

Ode.

Sung on the occasion of decorating the graves of the Confederate dead at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S. C., 1867.

LEEP sweetly in your humble

S'

graves,

Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause!
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause,

In seeds of laurel in the earth

The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone!

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years

Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.

Small tributes! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
Than when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this bay.

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground

Than where defeated valor lies,

By mourning beauty crowned!

HENRY TIMROD.

Suspiria Ensis.

MOURN no more for our dead,

Laid in their rest serene,

With the tears a land hath shed

Their graves shall ever be green.

Ever their fair, true glory

Fondly shall fame rehearse,

Light of legend and story,

Flower of marble and verse!

(Wilt thou forget, O mother!
How thy darlings, day by day,
For thee, and with fearless faces,
Journeyed the darksome way,—
Went down to death in the war-ship,
And on the bare hillside lay?)

For the Giver they gave their breath,

And 't is now no time to mourn, Lo, of their dear, brave death

A mighty nation is born!

But a long lament for others,
Dying for darker powers!
Those that once were our brothers,
Whose children shall yet be ours.

That a people, haughty and brave,
(Warriors, old and young!)
Should lie in a bloody grave,
And never a dirge be sung!

We may look with woe on the dead, We may smooth their lids, 't is true,

For the veins of a common red

And the mother's milk we drew.

But alas, how vainly bleeds

The breast that is bared for crime,

Who shall dare hymn the deeds

That else had been all sublime?

SUSPIRIA ENSIS.

Were it alien steel that clashed,

They had guarded each inch of sod, But the angry valor dashed

On the awful shield of God!

(Ah-if for some great good On some giant evil hurled The thirty millions had stood

'Gainst the might of a banded world!)

But now, to the long, long night

They pass, as they ne'er had been,

A stranger and sadder sight

Than ever the sun hath seen.

Gone - ay me! to the grave,

And never one note of song!

The Muse would weep for the brave,
But how shall she chant the wrong?

For a wayward wench is she,
One that rather would wait
With Old John Brown at the tree
Than Stonewall dying in state.

When, for the wrongs that were,
Hath she lilted a single stave?
Know, proud hearts, that, with her,
'Tis not enough to be brave.

159

By the injured, with loving glance,
Aye hath she lingered of old,
And eyed the evil askance,

Be it never so haught and bold.

With Homer, alms-gift in hand,
With Dante, exile and free,
With Milton, blind in the Strand,
With Hugo, lone by the sea!

In the attic, with Béranger,

She could carol, how blithe and free! Of the old, worn frocks of blue, (All threadbare with victory!)

But never of purple and gold,
Never of Lily or Bee!

And thus, though the traitor sword Were the bravest that battle wields,

Though the fiery valor poured

Its life on a thousand fields, —

The sheen of its ill renown

All tarnished with guilt and blame,

No poet a deed may crown,
No lay may laurel a name.

Yet never for thee, fair song!

The fallen brave to condemn ;
They died for a mighty wrong,
But their Demon died with them.

(Died, by field and by city!)

Be thine on the day to dwell, When dews of peace and of pity

Shall fall o'er the fading hell,

DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER.

And the dead shall smile in heaven,
And tears, that now may not rise,
Of love and of all forgiveness,

Shall stream from a million eyes.

161

HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL.

C

Dirge for a Soldier.

LOSE his eyes; his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,

Rise of moon or set of sun,

Hand of man or kiss of woman?

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!

What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!

As man may, he fought his fight,
Proved his truth by his endeavor;

Let him sleep in solemn night,
Sleep forever and forever.

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!

What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!

Fold him in his country's stars,
Roll the drum and fire the volley!
What to him are all our wars? -
What but death bemocking folly?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know;

Lay him low !