Ode:Sung On The. Occasion Of Decorating The Graves Of The Confederate Dead

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.

In seeds of laurels 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
As proudly on these wreaths to-day,
As 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!