To Alexander H. Stephens

By Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830–1886)

Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy. He died on March 4, 1883.

LAST of a stalwart time and race gone by,

That simple, stately, God-appointed band,

Who wrought alone to glorify their land,

With lives built high on truth’s eternity,

While placemen plot, while flatterers fawn or lie,

And foul corruptions, wave on wave, expand,

I see thee rise, stainless of heart as hand,

O man of Roman thought and radiant eye!

Through thy frail form, there burn divinely strong

The antique virtues of a worthier day;

Thy soul is golden, if thy head be gray,

No years can work that lofty nature wrong;

They set to concords of ethereal song

A life grown holier on its heavenward way.