| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | III. Accomplices | | By Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) |
| | (Virginia, 1865)
THE SOFT new grass is creeping o’er the graves | |
| By the Potomac; and the crisp ground-flower | |
| Lifts its blue cup to catch the passing shower; | |
| The pine-cone ripens, and the long moss waves | |
| Its tangled gonfalons above our braves. | 5 |
| Hark, what a burst of music from yon bower!— | |
| The Southern nightingale that, hour by hour, | |
| In its melodious summer madness raves. | |
| Ah, with what delicate touches of her hand, | |
| With what sweet voices, Nature seeks to screen | 10 |
| The awful Crime of this distracted land,— | |
| Sets her birds singing, while she spreads her green | |
| Mantle of velvet where the Murdered lie, | |
| As if to hide the horror from God’s eye. | | | | |
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