| Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (18381915). Yale Book of American Verse. 1912. |
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| Henry Timrod. 18291867 |
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| 171. Ode |
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| [Sung on the occasion of decorating the graves of the Confederate dead at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S. C., 1867.] |
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| SLEEP sweetly in your humble graves, | |
| Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause; | |
| Though yet no marble column craves | |
| The pilgrim here to pause. | |
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| In seeds of laurel in the earth | 5 |
| The blossom of your fame is blown, | |
| And somewhere, waiting for its birth, | |
| The shaft is in the stone! | |
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| Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years | |
| Which keep in trust your storied tombs, | 10 |
| Behold! your sisters bring their tears, | |
| And these memorial blooms. | |
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| Small tributes! but your shades will smile | |
| More proudly on these wreaths to-day, | |
| Than when some cannon-moulded pile | 15 |
| Shall overlook this bay. | |
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| Stoop, angels, hither from the skies! | |
| There is no holier spot of ground | |
| Than where defeated valor lies, | |
| By mourning beauty crowned! | 20 |
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